Thicker than Water
by XWingAce
Summary: Eight years after Saya's fallen asleep, her nieces and Kai are living happily ever after. But little girls play, and accidents do happen. And wasn't there a Chevalier still walking around?
1. First Blood

Here I go posting WIP again, against my better judgment. I started this fic three years ago. I finished this first part quite quickly. I even managed to have it betaed by the fantastic zeldadragon. Part two took almost half a year to write. And I've been stuck on part three ever since. So I've decided, to hell with it, I'll post. Maybe it'll help with inspiration for part three. No promises, though.

Both parts of this fic so far do have their own plots, but I'd planned to resolve the overarching plot in part 3, and I haven't written that yet. So these two chapters each do stand as their own stories.

Enjoy,

XWA

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Every time Kai led his adopted daughters up the long staircase to the grave Saya slept in, he found a fresh rose before the entrance of the tomb. Those fresh roses were the only sign that Haji was still around somewhere.

Kai hadn't ever seen Saya's Chevalier in person after the collapse of the New York Opera house. At one point, he'd thought he'd heard familiar cello music during a street festival in the town at the foot of the hill, but by the time Kai had reached a spot where he'd have been able to see the musician, only a disappointed crowd remained. So the roses were a pleasant reassurance for all that they weren't meant for him.

Kai was glad Haji had survived. After all that time spent caring for Saya - protecting her and everyone around her - he deserved better than to die trapped in a collapsing building. It wouldn't hurt for Haji to show his face once in a while, though. Kai needed all the help he could get in raising Saya's (and his own, for that matter) nieces.

Saya had wanted for them to grow up as human as possible. So far it was working out. They needed periodic blood transfusions, but thankfully Julia was on hand for that. Apart from that minor irregularity, they went to school and played with each other and their friends like the regular happy eight-year-olds they should be. And they were just as much of a handful.

The brats in question were gleefully skipping down the stairs leading from the gravesite, playing tag. It'd been raining just shortly before, so the steps were extremely slippery. "Girls," he called out, "watch where you're going. You fall down here, you could break a leg or worse."

The girls didn't like his warnings. "Kaaaaaai," they moaned in unison, but they did stop running around long enough for him to catch up. "You're no fun today," Elisa said.

"We were just playing." That was Irene, coming to her sister's defense.

Kai picked up Irene, intending to talk to her face-to-face where she couldn't run away. She was getting heavy for such a little kid. And she squirmed, too. "Kai, put me down!" she ordered.

"How many times have I told you to call me 'dad'?" Kai mock-scolded her, then set her down. He went down on one knee and put a hand on a shoulder for each girl. "You can play all you want. Just be careful, okay?"

The girls both nodded. Then Irene shot forward, tapped Kai on the chest and shouted "Tag, you're it!" The girls stormed off down the stairs again, giggling all the while.

"Why you little…" Kai growled. He tried to sound threatening, but he was smiling himself. They were growing up pretty well, if he did say so himself. "I'm coming to get you!" he shouted, and set off after the Irene and Elisa.

The steps really were slippery. It was a miracle the girls could run on them as well as they did. Kai had to slow down several times to catch his balance. That worked twice. The third time, his foot slipped in a puddle and he went down.

Kai thrust out his hand to catch himself, but it hit the edge of a step. It hurt his hand quite badly, but it did nothing to stop his fall. Instead he went tumbling all the way down the hill. He felt the first time his head hit a sharp rock. He felt the second time, too. Somewhere in there he guessed he broke something. And then his head hit stone for the third time. After that, Kai knew nothing for several blessed minutes.

Elisa and Irene both screamed as Kai rolled further and further down the long stone stairs. He didn't stop until he'd reached the bottom. His head landed in a puddle that quickly became red. When they both reached him (going slower and more carefully now, but still as quickly as they dared), his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving at all.

"Kai?" Irene asked. "Kai, are you okay?"

"We're sorry we ran away," Elisa added anxiously. "You're not hurt bad, are you?" Kai didn't answer. He was bruised and bloody all over, and one arm stuck out at a very weird angle. It was clear that he was hurt bad, whatever they might wish.

"He's very pale," Irene said to her sister after wiping some of the dirt out of Kai's face. "You're almost that pale when it's time for our blood transfusions."

Elisa looked Kai over too, gently brushing a little more dirt away. Irene was right. Kai i_was_/i very pale. That wasn't right. "You look that pale too, then," she said, just to say something. Then Elisa had an idea. "You think he needs a transfusion?"

Irene tried again to get Kai to respond. No luck. "We'll have to take him to Doctor Julia. Maybe she can help." She very carefully touched Kai's face again. "But he won't wake up, and we can't carry him that far." Irene had tears in her eyes. She was pretty close to panicking.

Elisa stayed cool, though. She had an idea already. "Maybe we can give one to him?"

Irene sniffed and shook her head. "Don't be silly. We haven't got any blood or any needles."

Elisa held up her arm. They'd both had a transfusion just yesterday. "We've got blood. Everyone's got blood. And we don't need needles." This was all really simple. Doctor Julia had even explained it, hadn't she? "They use needles for transfusion so the good things that are in the blood can get to your own blood quicker. They can do it with food and vitamins too, remember? But if you eat it, the good things will get to your blood too, it just takes a little longer.

Irene frowned. "I don't think it works like that," she said hesitantly. "Otherwise there'd also be blood pills or something."

"Kai makes those rare steaks sometimes, too," Elisa was on to something, and not about to give up. Not if it could help Kai. "I think it's worth a try, anyway."

Kai had been carrying a backpack with their lunches. It had included a bottle of beer for him. This bottle was now in shards, and some of them had spilled from the backpack after the fall. Elisa picked up the largest one and cut it across her underarm. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but when she pushed at the cut, a lot of blood came out.

"Oops, it's a little messy," she said, cupping her hand under her elbow to catch the flowing blood and not spill any more on her dress or on Kai. "Irene, you open his mouth," she said, and when Irene had reluctantly done so, she let her blood dribble onto Kai's tongue.

Kai's eyes sprang open. Elisa was about to crow to her sister about being right, but then something weird happened, causing both Irene and Elisa to scream again. Kai started twitching all over. More than twitching, even. It looked like some sort of strange jumping, almost. He twitched so hard he hit his head against the rock again, five times or so. Then he lay still.

"Kai?" Elisa asked again. He still didn't respond. But now there was movement. His chest was going up and down, very slowly. "He's breathing. It worked!"

"He's still pale, though." Irene wasn't convinced. "And he's still not awake."

"You're right." Elisa considered her options. Her cut had healed, and she didn't think she should give too much blood. She needed some herself, after all. But Irene was here as well, wasn't she? Elisa held the bloody shard of glass out to Irene. "Maybe we should give him some more. Here, you do it, too."

Before Irene could take the shard, a bandaged hand reached down and plucked it out of Elisa's hand. Then the shard was thrown far away into the bushes.

"That was very foolish," the owner of the bandaged hand said sternly. Elisa and Irene looked up at him, seeing a tall, thin, pale and very shabby man. He looked down at them with as much distaste as they felt at seeing the state of him. He didn't say another word, but instead picked Kai up like he was still a baby (that was quite impressive; Kai was almost as tall as the stranger and probably heavier) and walked off.

"Hey!" Elisa and Irene shouted together, and they ran ahead to block the stranger's path. "Where are you taking Kai?" Irene demanded.

"Julia." The stranger didn't take too much notice of the twin obstructions in his path. He simply stepped past them and continued on. That one word was all the answer Irene got. It was enough, however.

"You're taking him to Doctor Julia? Are you just going to leave us here?"

That halted the stranger. "No," he said after an eternity of a few seconds. He turned around and looked at the both of them, still very coldly. "Follow me."

The girls were too scared of him to do anything else.

"Where are the girls?" was the first thing Kai asked. He'd opened his eyes in a hospital room, and as far as he remembered, he'd been chasing after Elisa and Irene, going back home from visiting Saya's resting place. Clearly something had happened. He needed to know the girls were okay.

"The girls are with David," Julia said as she stepped into his field of view. "They've had quite a scare, but they're fine. You-"

"Can I see them?" Kai didn't even wait for Julia to finish speaking.

Julia frowned. "Maybe later." She hesitated. "Kai, what do you remember?"

Kai thought back. "I was playing tag with the girls, and then I slipped…" And then it hit him. He lifted his arm to feel his head. He recalled the pain of it hitting rock several times. There weren't any bumps on it. And the arm he thought he remembered breaking now only had a needle in it for an IV.

Then he remembered something else. It had only been very brief. It was mostly pain, in his head, in his arm –actually all over his body - but there was also the sight of Elisa hanging over him with a bloody arm, and a sweet metallic taste in his mouth. "…oh." That warranted several expletives that Kai didn't utter. "Shit." And one that he did.

He'd turned Diva down for a reason, damn it. He didn't want to live forever, especially not if it meant turning into one of those grotesque creatures and obeying some maniac's every whim. More than that, though, he'd wanted to stay himself for Saya, to give her the normality she so desperately needed. And now with Diva's daughters, that went triple. Normality not just for Saya, but for the girls as well. And he'd put a stop to that normality because of his own clumsiness.

Julia nodded her commiseration. Then she looked away. "I couldn't stop the process anymore. The data we got from Riku offered some clues, but even if I could have put something together quickly enough, you were already too far gone by the time Haji got you here. I'm sorry."

"Haji?" Kai followed Julia's gaze. Sure enough, there was Haji. He didn't look much like himself either. If at all possible, he was even paler and thinner than he'd always been, and his normally fine clothing had been reduced to little more than rags. He didn't look at Kai.

"I'm sorry."

Kai had to think for several seconds before he could find something to say to that, and then, just when he was about to open his mouth to speak, the door to the room opened and Elisa and Irene stormed in. They were on Kai's bed and had their arms around his neck before Julia, Haji _or _David, who had followed the two of them into the room, could stop them.

"You're okay, you're okay, we're glad you're okay," went the litany while he hugged the both of them. It felt so good to have them in his arms again that the fact that he was far from okay was banished from his mind for a second.

"I'm glad E-veryone is okay," Kai caught himself just in time. He _was_ mainly glad that Elisa was okay, but that wasn't the way things should be. The moment of happiness was gone again. Damn it. He frowned while the girls still had their faces pressed to his chest so they couldn't see it. They caught onto his mood, however, and misinterpreted it.

They let go of him and sat on the edge of his bed. They bowed their heads contritely. "We shouldn't have run like that," Irene said. "Doctor Julia and Mr. David and the scary man have been scolding us all week."

"And I know I shouldn't have given you blood," Elisa continued. She looked positively devastated. "Julia explained again about blood transfusions. I did something very wrong." She folded her hands and bowed her head like a little angel. "We're really, really sorry. Forgive us?"

A pair of blue angel eyes stared at him. How could he refuse a request like that? Kai stretched out his unrestrained arm and hugged Elisa to him. Belatedly, he also pulled in Irene. "How could I not forgive you?"

"Okay girls," Julia interrupted, "you got to see Kai for a minute so you know he's all right. Now come on and let him rest."

David nodded an apologetic greeting to Kai. "Elisa knew the second you'd woken up, and the both of them wouldn't stop begging until I brought them here." He spoke English, not Japanese, presumably so the girls wouldn't understand him. He switched now to the second language. "Time to leave, girls."

"I want to stay," Irene said.

"Oh, no," David said, lifting Irene off the bed with some effort and setting her on the floor. "The more you let Kai rest, the sooner he'll be up properly."

"I want to stay, too," Elise said when David approached her, and clung to Kai.

Kai pulled his arm tighter around her. He didn't want to let go, either. "Can't we let them stay a little longer?"

"No." Julia shooed Irene to the door and beckoned for Elisa to come, too. When Elisa didn't let go and Kai didn't show any signs of pushing her away, she gave Kai a long, level look.

Kai caught that, a similar look from David, and Haji's blank stare, and then realized what he was doing. He swallowed, then loosened his grip on Elisa and pushed her upright. He smiled. "I'll be fine, honey. I just need a little rest, okay?"

"Elisa, come on," Julia commanded. Elisa followed her reluctantly. Kai stared after Elisa until she'd left the room, and even then kept on looking at the door as if she might walk through it again at any moment.

"They both had a few earfuls about calling a doctor instead of trying anything by themselves." David said. "And we're lucky Haji interfered when he did or you might not be here at all. He said Irene was about to feed you her blood as well." When Kai didn't respond, David snapped his fingers in front if Kai's face. "Kai."

Kai blinked, then shook his head to clear it a little. "Yeah." He searched his memory for what David had just said. "That would have really surprised them, alright. Me turning into ash." Though at least it would have meant he'd died, almost of what he was apparently supposed to have died of -terminal clumsiness was still a valid cause of death. Then again, if that had happened he still wouldn't have been around to take care of Elisa and Irene, or be there when Saya woke up again. "I'm not sure which would have been better."

David approached Kai's bed to hit him on the back of the head. It didn't hurt. "Don't be an idiot. I thought you grew up better than that." He paced away again, back to his spot near the door and folded his arms. "You made a promise to Saya. This gives you a chance to fulfill that promise, more than you could have done. Think about it."

Clearly, David had different views on the matter, perhaps colored by his knowing Haji for so long. He was missing the point of 'not changing', though. It wasn't about growing old or not. If he was there as Elisa's Chevalier (he'd have to face up to the term at some point) when Saya woke up, she still wouldn't have the normality she needed. But Kai didn't have the words to explain that to David. "I suppose."

"You suppose right," David said, the old authority he used to carry coming through in his voice again. It suited him. Then his tone softened a little. "This shouldn't have happened," he allowed, "But..." And now his tone became commanding again, and he speared Kai with a glare. "If you want the girls to grow up normal, the best thing you can do is stick with them the way you have, at least for now." David turned so that same glare took Haji in as well. "And if you need help, Julia and I are here."

Haji didn't seem to respond to David's scorn, and Kai, still disagreeing with the basic premise (except for the part that included staying with Eli—the girls) didn't say anything but just looked away. David sighed. "Very well. I'll leave you to think that over." He left the room.

-x-

Julia declared Kai fit to go home the next day, to the joy of Elisa and Irene. From the haggard looks of both her and David, taking care of his two firebrands as well as their own daughter had taken its toll. They had to be happy, or at least relieved, to leave them back in his care.

Kai, for his part, was just as happy to have his daughters back. But that happiness soon faded right about the same time he realized that when Elisa had demanded a piggyback ride he'd picked her up without even thinking about it. And then he'd carried her like that all the way back home from the bus stop (not like she weighed anything, after all) despite Irene's demands that she be given a turn, because Elisa didn't want to come down.

He'd have to start second-guessing himself a lot more. If he kept this up, soon enough Irene would notice, and that would only encourage rivalry between the girls. And that was exactly what everyone involved in this wanted to avoid. Argh. Fair and even-handed, that was the watchword from now on.

He tried to make up for carrying Elisa the whole way by having Irene choose what he would cook for dinner that night; it could be as luxurious as she wanted as a celebration for his coming home. He didn't have much of an appetite, but Irene started squealing for tamagoyaki and Elisa joined in enthusiastically, so Kai lit the furnace and started cooking.

When he tasted the mix to see if it was properly seasoned, it didn't taste like anything, so he added more seasoning. When it _still _didn't have much taste, he added a bit more, but at that point it almost looked as if he had more seasoning than egg, so he shrugged and prepared it. The finished product still tasted bland to him. He loaded the girls' plates and set them on the table for them, then brought over the side dishes (nothing seemed to taste like it should today).

He wasn't hungry, so he left the girls to eat while he cleaned up the kitchen and started to prepare their lunch boxes for the next day.

"Kai, something's wrong with these eggs!" Elisa remarked loudly.

Kai caught himself before he broke another egg over the mixing bowl. "Those eggs are fine, Elisa. Just eat them, okay?" See? Fair and even-handed. He could do it.

He couldn't find any more cherry tomatoes in the refrigerator, so he went into the back storeroom to see if there was something else that would do as filler. Kai barely had his foot in the room when something gray, hairy, and _much_ bigger than it should reasonably be shot out at him. Acting purely on reflex, he kicked at the thing. It flew up into the air, and he caught it. He had to hold on tight, because it wriggled, and it was pretty strong. For a rat. A _big_ rat.

A big rat that bit. And hard.

Kai bit down on a curse and smashed the rat against the wall. That did nothing to stop it. In fact, it just started struggling harder, and it bit down into Kai's hand even further. Kai grabbed the rat with his other hand in an attempt to pry it loose.

For just a second, the rat let go. Then it bit down again. And Kai, still holding on tight with both hands, jerked one hand up and away. Something crunched, and his hand came, still holding the rat. But his other hand was also still holding part of the beast. And the floor as well as his shirt was instantly covered in blood.

Kai stood for a few instants, dazed. He couldn't believe his own eyes, for multiple reasons. For one, one couldn't simply pull a living creature in two like that. Not without exerting a great deal more strength than he had, at least. Two, rats usually weren't this aggressive or bloodthirsty, and since when did he have rats in his house, anyway? Third, and worst, the blood on the floor looked and smelled more appetizing than any of the food he'd prepared that evening.

If Kai'd had any food in him, he would have vomited. But he hadn't eaten in… days, actually, come to think of it, so all he did was gag and cough a few times. Then he took a deep breath (hadn't done that in a while either) and closed his eyes, trying to pull himself back together. He'd known about all this. He'd seen it happen to his little brother, he'd heard the lectures from Julia and David, and he knew Haji well enough too. He should have expected the lack of appetite and the need for blood as food. But somehow it hadn't gotten through yet. One more thing to upset the normality of his household.

He took off his bloodied shirt to mop up the worst of the blood from the floor, fighting the impulse to suck it right out of the fabric. He'd have to find a way to get past the girls and get a new one. And he'd have to get rid of this shirt without anyone noticing, too. He'd also have to clean up in here a lot better. But that could wait. First things first, and that meant getting clean himself, before the smell of blood drove him crazy.

He snuck through the narrow hallway that led past the kitchen to the living area upstairs and changed his clothes. He bundled the old set into a stray plastic bag and dropped the bag out of the window into the back yard. It fell next to the bin for burnable trash. Damn, he'd have to go outside to put it in properly.

This time when he walked past the kitchen entrance, he was greeted by a "Finally, there he is!" and Mao stepped in front of him. She held a bit of scrambled egg with a pair of chopsticks, and she shoved it in his face. "What are you feeding these kids?"

"Eggs, clearly," Kai answered. "And nice to see you, too, Mao. It's been a while." He took a good look at the egg under his nose. It did look a bit… un-egg-like, to be honest, and it smelled odd, too. He took a careful bite. It tasted like cardboard. "Still not enough soy sauce?"

"Not i_enough/i_?" Mao frowned, and let her hand drop. The bit of egg fell limply to the floor, and the chopsticks clattered as they followed. She put her other hand up on Kai's forehead. "You're still not okay, are you?"

"Kai's okay now, he came back from the hospital," Elisa piped in on that one.

"That's right, Elisa," Kai answered her, smiling at her. He shrugged at Mao, keeping the smile. "I just need to adjust to being on my feet again." No need to worry her needlessly with his own troubles.

Mao didn't seem to be taking his word for it. She didn't stop frowning, but she did nod. "I've heard that sometimes people's sense of smell or taste can change after they hit their heads. You might want to get that checked out." She picked up the plate of tamagoyaki and unceremoniously dumped the contents in the waste bin. "Because that was inedible by anyone's standards."

Kai groaned. It appeared, on top of everything else, that he'd have to learn how to cook again. That'd make Omoro even i_less/i_ popular for the coming time. He was having trouble making ends meet for the restaurant as it was. "Fine," he said. "I'll start over." He pointed at Mao. "And this time, you get to taste the mix."

He set a clean mixing bowl on the counter and opened the refrigerator to get more eggs. "What brings you here, anyway?" As far as he'd known, Mao was away with Okamura in someplace hot and dry, tracking down remnants of Amshel's experiments and assisting local authorities in dealing with them. Julia's medicine to neutralize the drug that Cinq Flêches had distributed throughout the world had worked admirably, but there were still people even now, especially in the more remote parts of the globe, that underwent the transformation into wild Chiropterans. Luckily, most authorities now knew how to deal with them and damages were usually limited. Still, it kept Mao and Okamura busy enough. He hadn't expected to see her in Japan anytime soon.

"I heard you had a bad fall. I can't come visit a sick friend?" Mao set the dirty plate down in the sink. Her words were cheerful, but her tone sounded forced. She dropped the cheerfulness, too. "You made me worry again. Don't do that."

"Yes, ma'am." Kai closed the fridge door and put the eggs on the counter. Then he opened another cabinet to rummage for more seasonings.

Mao lowered her voice so it was barely audible. "And I came because it looks like there might be a Chiropteran attack here again soon."

Kai slammed the cabinet door so hard it bounced open again. "i_What/i?_" When Mao opened her mouth to answer, he held up a hand. "No, not where the girls can hear."

"Kai, are you angry?" Irene asked from the table. "You scared us!" Elisa accused him.

"I'm sorry, honey." Kai walked over to the table to ruffle Elisa's hair. Over her half-hearted protests he said, "I think Kid's Hour is about to start. Why don't the two of you go upstairs and watch it?" Kid's Hour was yet another in a long line of 'favorite' TV shows. Kai was losing track of exactly which ones had enchanted the girls, but this one had endured longer than most.

"But we're hungry!" they said in unison. The both of them looked tempted, though. Kai normally didn't let them get away from the table until the meal was finished, TV show or no. And if they did leave, they wouldn't get any more food that evening.

"Tell you what," Mao interrupted, also walking up to the table. "I don't think Kai's quite up to cooking yet," she stage-whispered to the girls. Then she continued at normal volume, "so why don't you girls go watch your TV show, and afterwards big sis Mao will take you all for pizza. How's that sound?"

The girls' faces brightened. Two hopeful stares were directed at Kai. "Can we?" Elisa asked.

Taking them to the pizza place after the TV show was finished would put them in bed far later than their normal bedtime. But who could refuse those big, pleading eyes? Also, he needed the time alone with Mao, so he could hardly refuse now. "Oh, all right. Go, the two of you." They ran off. That left Kai with Mao. He waited until he could hear the faint sounds of the TV coming from upstairs before he spoke again. "So. Impending Chiropteran attack."

"Yes." Mao sat down on the chair Irene had just vacated. She put her elbows on the table, her hands folded, and took a deep breath. "Now, keep in mind we're going by educated guesses and statistics here. Nothing has to happen." She waited for Kai to nod. She copied it. "Over the past few years, all Cinq Flêches products have been eliminated, and the people who were going to transform into Chiropterans in spite of Red Shield's vaccine, we'd expect to have done so already. But we're still seeing Chiropterans appearing, and the frequency isn't falling off anymore, not for two years now. The science people from Red Shield think the…" Mao frowned, trying to think of the right term. "…vector? Is that the word? They think the vector that causes the transformation is spreading in another way.

"They also noted that more Chiropteran attacks were likely to occur somewhere where there'd already been one. So they employed a few more epidemiologists to have a closer look at possible methods of spreading the infection."

"Yes?"

"Initially, just after - well, you know – all these attacks were spread out pretty equally. They happened everywhere. But these more recent ones almost always happen in poor neighborhoods, or at least more rural ones. Places where there's more contact with animals, especially vermin."

"You think it's spreading through animals?"

"That's what the doctors think. From what I've seen, they've got a decent case. We have data from the US and from the EU. Almost every time before we got a report of a Chiropteran, the weeks before there was an increase in rabid animal attacks. Also, last year we dealt with an outbreak in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The place we went to was crawling with rats." Mao shuddered at the memory. "We couldn't deal with them all, not without burning a whole slum community down. But just a few weeks later, there were another two transformations there." She looked down at her hands. "In fact, there's been Chiropterans popping up in Rio ever since. Every few weeks. The longest respite they've had there is something like two months, I think. They're keeping it all very quiet, but from what I hear, Brazil is seriously considering the scorched earth option." Mao fell silent. Kai could see her swallow deeply, and open her mouth to say more, but nothing came out.

"And here we thought it was all over except for the cleaning up." Kai said when the silence became too much for him to bear. He pulled back another chair and sat himself down. "How wrong we were." Diva had left a greater heritage than just her daughters, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

"We're getting there." Mao rubbed her face. "We've got soldiers trained in handling them now, and we're developing some things that should make the process a little less violent. But it's been very slow going."

"So what clued you in to here?"

"Rats. The whole village down by the gravesite, and now the town here, too, has been reporting more and more rat infestations since the past week. There haven't been any Chiropteran attacks here since Saya came back, but… well…" Mao's implication was clear.

"Nothing happened to Saya," Kai said, with rock-solid certainty. But then, Saya wasn't the only one left whose blood could cause this, was she? And Elisa and Irene had been careless with theirs just a little over a week ago. He put his head in his hands. "It's all starting again."

"If nothing happened to Saya, then maybe it really is nothing." Mao took Kai's hand and squeezed it until he looked up again. "And even if it isn't, we caught it early and we'll have enough people here. You won't have to fight and the girls don't even have to know."

"Are you kidding me?" Kai felt the protective instincts well up inside him. "I can't just stand by and do nothing while at any second…"

"Are you in any condition to fight?" Mao interrupted him sharply. "You're ice-cold and white as a ghost. You can't protect your girls like that, either."

"Protect us from what?" Irene said. She and Elisa were peeking around the doorsill.

"The monsters in your bedroom closets," Mao answered without missing a beat, saving Kai an explanation. She softened her words with a wink and a smile.

"Aah, those aren't monsters at all," Elisa pouted. "They're just clothes."

Mao shook her head. "You haven't seen some of my wardrobe," she said. But that went over the girls' heads. They just frowned at her. "So, everyone ready for some pizza?" Both girls nodded enthusiastically. As it turned out, they had their jackets already in their hands.

Mao drove them to the pizzeria in her rental car. That made it as much again an outing for the girls as just going for pizza already was. Kai didn't have the money to keep a car, and with the girls living within - albeit long - walking distance from their primary school, they didn't need one. He spent most of the ride making sure Elisa and Irene stayed in their seats and didn't start experimenting with the seatbelt clasps. They made a party out of it in the back seat.

But the party didn't last long when they got there.

The servers greeted the girls cheerfully and familiarly, as if they were regulars here. When Kai asked one of the busboys about that, it turned out that David had brought the girls here three times in the past week. Nobody had told Kai. And now the girls had managed to wrangle another visit out of him. Well, if they'd told him they'd already been here three times this week, he wouldn't have allowed them to come again. Probably. He would certainly have put up more of a fight. Then again, Elisa i_had_ /iasked so sweetly…

Anyway, he'd have to have a long conversation with David about letting kids eat properly, and then he'd have to find some way of paying David and Julia back for the cost of feeding expensive pizzas to the bottomless pits that were his girls. Another thing that indicated that they really were related to Saya, alright.

Something already felt off to Kai when the attendant brought their drinks and a basket of bread. He couldn't place it, however, so he just kept watching and listening to Mao gently teasing Elisa and Irene and vice versa, occasionally adding his two cents in the girls' defense. Against Mao, even someone as quick as Elisa needed it. Then he caught something small and dark slipping along the wall from out of the corner of his eye. The ladies didn't seem to notice.

The bubble burst when their attendant came to tell them that there was a problem in the kitchen, and they were very sorry, but they couldn't prepare any pizza right now. Would they take coupons for a free meal? Kai handled the conversation, because Mao had just picked up her cell phone.

He looked behind the server at the door to the kitchen. It swung open at that point, and one of the other servers walked out. He tried to hide it, but he seemed somewhat panicked. The swinging door to the kitchen revealed a small dark shape flitting across the floor. A rat. Kai looked back at the attendant still waiting for a response. "We'll take the coupons, thanks." The other eaters had also gotten wind of the trouble, and a small exodus was starting. "Is everyone all right?"

The attendant shook her head, then ran over to help her colleague. Kai got out of the bench and picked up Elisa against her protests. She still wanted her pizza. "We can't, sweetie. We've gotta go now."

Mao snapped her cell phone shut. She'd been completely absorbed in the brief conversation. "We've got trouble."

"Yes, we do," Kai said, helping Elisa into her jacket. "Can you help Irene?"

Mao's eyebrows rose. "What, here too?" She grabbed Irene's coat and helped her in it.

Kai nodded, then looked straight in Mao's eyes. "Rodent infestation, apparently."

"Oh sh- …-oo." Mao bit her tongue just in time. "Let's get out of here." She opened her phone again, pushed a quick dial number and told whoever was at the other end that the pizzeria was infected, too. Then she led Irene back to the car and installed her in it. Kai did the same with Elisa. The two of them stayed outside of the car for a few seconds.

"So where did they tell you the trouble was?" Kai asked.

"The school. Apparently the janitor started to become violent this afternoon. Right now they've got a Chiropteran on their hands. Police have cordoned off the area and the army is on its way. I suppose it's some sort of luck we saw this coming. At least we've got lots of people here who have dealt with this before. I'm supposed to be coordinating at the scene." She checked around, then tossed Kai the car keys. "It's not far to the school. I'll run. You drive your kids out of here."

And go where? Kai wanted to ask the question, but Mao was already running. He clearly couldn't keep Elisa safe i_here/i_. But those rats were at the Omoro too, even if Mao hadn't noticed them. So he couldn't just take the girls back there, either. He'd have to go in alone and make sure they were all gone before he let Elisa and Irene back in again. Until then, they'd have to find someplace else to stay. But it needed to be somewhere his girls could be protected. That left David and Julia. Even though he'd be trespassing even more on their hospitality, David was at least somewhat capable of protecting the girls, and he had access to resources to do even more.

David and Julia lived close to the hospital. Kai drove towards it, all the while trying to fend off complaints from the girls that they were still hungry. To make things worse, he couldn't get to the hospital because he met yet another police cordon when he was about a block away. Uh-oh. He took out his own cell phone and called David. Julia picked up. "Kai. This is Julia. Is everything okay with you?"

"Not really. I was on my way to your place with the girls. But there's police here. What's going on?"

Julia waited a little before replying. "It's probably better if you stayed away. We seem to be having some problems with rabid rats."

Kai closed his eyes. Rats were at the Omoro, where his girls lived; at the school, where they spent a great deal of their time; at the pizzeria, where they'd been four times this week; and now at the hospital, where they'd also spent a lot of time in the past several days. Two was a coincidence, three a pattern. What did that make four? "You mean like the one I had back home? Or the ones at the school?"

Julia wasn't quite that far yet. "At your place as well? Damn. We'll have to do something about that, too." She sighed, audibly. "Okay. Where are you? We'll get someone to let you through. Are the girls okay?"

Kai gave the name of the street he was in. "The girls are with me. They're fine for now." He forced a laugh. "Maybe a bit hungry."

Julia wasn't amused. She sounded worried. "It's not safe here, Kai."

"I know." If his hunch was right, it wouldn't be safe anywhere, not until these things were taken care of. And Kai could help with that. He certainly had more experience fighting chiropterans than any police officer.

When he got to the roadblock, a police officer asked to see his passport, then waved him through. Kai was pointed in the direction of one house that had a lot of cars parked around it, including David's. He added Mao's rental to the collection.

David was inside, surrounded by other people, mostly police officers. When Kai brought the girls in, David gave a few brief orders and the girls were taken from Kai's hands and whisked upstairs. When Kai wanted to follow them, David stopped him.

"The girls will be safe for now. But I have a few questions for you." He directed a glare at Kai. "What was this about rats at the Omoro?"

Kai recounted how he'd killed the rat, then followed it up with the not-yet-an-incident at the pizzeria. He made half a mention of taking children there too often, but it wasn't followed up. This wasn't the time. David heard his words and nodded along. Then Kai swallowed, and presented his theory. He whispered, not wanting to be overheard. "The rats are showing up everywhere the girls have been. I think they're following the scent."

David's eyes opened wide. Then he frowned. "It's a theory." He grabbed one of the people scurrying around, said a few words, and within seconds had a file in his hands. He leafed through it, reading a few lines here and there. At one page, he stoped and his eyebrows rose. He showed the page to Kai. "One with some good supporting evidence." The page was a list of rat infestations reported over the past week. They'd started near the gravesite, but then moved further and further first into the village and then into the larger town. Most of the rats had been reported in places where the girls visited regularly.

Kai frowned. "Then it's not going to be safe for them anywhere, is it?" He read some of the other pages in the report. These rats were a lot more aggressive than usual, attacking dogs and humans even when unprovoked. And from Mao's conclusions _and_ the fact that someone, probably the janitor, at Elisa and Irene's school had been infected, it was pretty obvious they were carrying the 'vector' for transformation into chiropterans. Hell, maybe they had been transformed. That was something that Julia might be able to tell him. Kai's biology wasn't that great. Still, it was obvious running wasn't going to accomplish anything. He might as well help clean this mess up. It was partly his fault, after all. He looked up from the folder, at David. "I want to help." That seemed to be the only way to protect Elisa from most of this mess, after all.

David regarded him levelly for long seconds. Finally he nodded. "I'll see what I can do," he said, and gestured toward the stairs. "Now go confirm we're taking good care of your daughters."

Kai was halfway up the stairs and feeling grateful before it occurred to him to wonder if maybe David's final comment had been sarcastic. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, but right now Kai didn't care. As long as Elisa was all right.

She was, and so was Irene. The both of them were in some other child's bedroom, surrounded by junior police officers. Someone had even thought to make them sandwiches. That hadn't stopped them worrying, however. As soon as Kai entered the room, the both of them practically jumped him. "Kai, what's going on? Why can't we go home?" they both asked, and Irene clamped onto his leg and said "I'm scared."

Kai freed his leg from Irene's arms, then went down on one knee. He pulled Elisa against him, and stroked Irene's hair. "You don't have to be scared." He gestured around the room. "There're all these officers to keep you safe." Kai heard one of those officers grumble something about 'bloody babysitting'. He ignored it for now. "There're a lot of loose animals around, and they might bite people. That's why everything's closed off. I'm going to help fix it, okay?" He forced a smile. He hadn't exactly been lying, but it was enough of a deviation from the truth that it hurt a little. But better that than involve Elisa and Irene even further in this.

The girls nodded. "Okay."

"That's good. Be polite, and I'll be back before you know it." Kai kissed Elisa's hair, ruffled Irene's, and got up. When he walked past the police officer who had grumbled earlier, Kai smiled at her and asked "Can I talk to you outside for a second, ma'am?"

The officer followed him out of the room. As soon as they were out of sight of the girls, Kai pulled the officer in closer. He did it quite gently, because a part of him deep inside felt terror at treating a policewoman like this. But a larger part really wanted to lay into the woman for denigrating the duty of protecting Elisa. And even his gentle pull seemed enough to unbalance the officer. "If anything happens to my girls, ma'am, babysitting duties will be the least of your worries. Please don't make me do anything I might regret." He kept his language polite, too, because that's what you did when speaking to the police.

The –again, gentle – shove he imparted as he let the officer go was enough to send her reeling against the wall, eyes wide with fright. "Understood, sir," she managed to stutter out.

Kai made a slight bow. "Then I'll leave my daughters in your care." He turned away and walked back downstairs, frowning. He hadn't done anything so violent to scare the officer that badly, had he? Anyway, she deserved it. And now Elisa would be well looked after. Irene, too.

Downstairs, David had drawn up his plans and the army had arrived. Kai was introduced to a Captain Okura, the commander of the squad Kai would be joining. The squad would go in to the school to 'take care' of the transformed human there.

The captain didn't look too happy about it. "You'll be in our way, Mr. Miyagusuku," he told Kai. "We've trained extensively for this, and we'll be shooting with live weapons. We don't want you getting in the line of fire and get hurt."

"I can take care of myself," Kai assured him. Training or no training, most likely this was the first time this young captain, who couldn't be much older than Kai, had faced a chiropteran. Japan, and especially Okinawa, had gotten off very lightly after Saya had fallen asleep again. But Kai had been fighting chiropterans since he was sixteen years old, and had often been doing it almost alone, with nothing but a single handgun between him and bloody death. Come to think of it, he'd left George Miyagusuku's semiautomatic back home, safely taken apart and locked away, hidden from all eyes. It was, after all, illegal to have a gun like that, but Kai hadn't been about to give it up. He might need it someday. And now that he did, he was still unarmed. He'd have to do something about that. He nodded to the captain. "Though if I could borrow a weapon, that would probably help."

Captain Okura shook his head resolutely. "Red Shield or not, we're not going to give out guns to civilians, sir. You're coming along as an observer, sir. We'll get you some proper body armor, and you'll stay at the back of our formation. It's only because my superiors insisted on it that I'm allowing this at all."

Kai raised an eyebrow at David, who shrugged. "It was the best I could do. Sorry." David had to have pulled _some_ strings, all right, if he could ask favors from army high command. Or maybe it was the Red Shield clout that had built up over the years.

"Better than nothing, I guess," Kai answered. Then he turned back to the captain. "Lead the way, Captain."

The captain led him to a truck outside. On the way, they were joined by the rest of the soldiers coming out of a side room. When Kai glanced through the door, he saw Julia gathering her papers. So the soldiers had probably had a briefing on chiropterans. Truly a miracle of preparation, they were.

None of the soldiers were much inclined to speak. Kai was handed his bulletproof vest and helmet with facemask silently, and one soldier helped him strap them on, saying as little as possible. The rest of the brief drive went by in silence.

At the school, Mao greeted Kai's presence among the soldiers with surprise. "I thought you were going to take your girls home to keep them safe," she said after telling Captain Okura she didn't need to be introduced to the 'Red Shield observer'.

"It's not safe at home, either." Kai presented his theory again.

Mao listened, then frowned at him. "And you didn't tell me about this before, why?"

"Didn't have the time."

"Hmm," Mao huffed. "I suppose." Her frown didn't lift, however. "And they're sending you in there unarmed?"

Kai shook his head. "If you can pull more strings than David can, be my guest," he said. "But I'll manage somehow, I guess. I can always pick up a dropped gun. Wouldn't be the first time I did that, either. At least I'll be able to help."

"Running off into danger again. I thought you'd broken that habit," Mao said moodily. A rueful smile appeared on her face for an instant. Then the frown was back. She put a finger on his chest. "But you get back safe, you hear?" Kai nodded. Mao waved her hand. "Off you go, then. Good luck."

Kai rejoined Captain Okura, who was giving last-second instructions to his squad members. When he was finished, he made a flurry of gestures and most of the soldiers dispersed, moving to take their positions around the building. The captain remained, together with three other soldiers. All four of them ignored Kai.

After about a minute, signals had come in from all the soldiers that they were in position. The captain spoke into the microphone attached to his helmet. "Move in, now! Go, go, go!" He started sprinting toward the front door of the building immediately. His men followed, and so did Kai.

The soldiers sprinted through the school, quickly clearing the classrooms of any remaining rats. It appeared the janitor had done a pretty good job of getting rid of them before the transformation. But of the transformed janitor, there was, as yet, no sign.

From the direction they were moving in, Kai supposed that the plan was to converge at the school's gym, which also served as an assembly room. The captain believed in leading from the front. He was the first into most of the classrooms, with two of his men following. But the lack of larger prey than rats was also making the captain careless. Maybe he thought the chiropteran was in another part of the building.

Kai felt cut off. He had one soldier who stuck close with him, but that one wasn't talking, and he couldn't hear the radio signals the company was using to communicate, either. All he had were his eyes to follow the action. So he did, looking around furiously, trying to catch everything.

Kai saw the chiropteran before the soldiers did. They had just entered a classroom when the thing pounced from around a corner, moving so fast that the soldier's movements seemed glacial. He shouted a warning, then started running to intercept the beast.

He was slow, too. He needed more speed, right now. The armor around his chest restricted him, so he tore it off. And there was the speed he was looking for. Kai cried out another warning, then took a jump.

His momentum carried him into the chest of the chiropteran. He bounced off it. Hell, he'd gotten its attention. It roared, and struck out at him with one of its claws. He simply sidestepped it. The claw went into the wall behind Kai, gouging out chunks of brightly painted plaster.

Kai took a step forward, evading the other claw. If he didn't have a gun, his hands would have to do. He folded both his hands over each other, with just the thumbs sticking out. Then he jabbed his folded hands up into the stomach of the chiropteran. He followed it up with a kick aimed at its knee. That unbalanced it long enough for him to slip past it, away from the wall that restricted his movement. He'd have to get out of the corridor, too. It seemed awfully small all of a sudden.

Bullets tore into the chiropteran. It roared and turned to face the new distraction. Kai tore at the beast's arm to keep its attention focused on him. He was a little surprised by the long gashes his fingernails left, but didn't dwell on it long enough to delay another punch that snapped the chiropteran's head back farther than it looked like it should go.

"There's two of them!" he heard one of the soldiers shout. Kai looked around. Where? If there was more than one, he i_definitely/i_ needed more room to maneuver. He grabbed the arm of the chiropteran and pulled it into the corridor leading to the gym. That should have plenty of space.

It was actually sort of strange how easily this fight was going. Taking on even one chiropteran hand to hand wasn't something Kai had ever dreamed of doing, strong and nearly indestructible as they were. But this was going quite well, all things considered. He kept evading the beast's claws, drawing it ever closer to the gym. Then, just as he was in the door, one strike got through. The chiropteran's claws raked across Kai's chest. It hurt like hell, and he reacted without thinking. Instead of making a fist or employing fancy tactics, he struck at the creature's heart with an outstretched hand, as if his fingers were a blade.

He struck true. Before he realized it, his hand was in the chiropteran's chest, and he could feel its heartbeat. i_Now/i_ Kai made a fist and pulled back whatever he had grabbed. It was just a tasty-looking bloody glob. Hah. He could win this fight. He whooped in triumph as the chiropteran roared in pain. He struck again, at its neck this time, and clawed out another bloody chunk. Then he grabbed the beast's head in one hand and its shoulder in the other. All it took was a quick twist and a sharp pull, and head and body were separated. It wasn't entirely unlike the way he'd killed that rat this afternoon.

The chiropteran's body still twitched a little, but it soon stopped and started to crystallize. It really was dead. Good. Now it wouldn't hurt his daughters anymore, or anyone else. Kai checked through the door to see if the soldiers were all okay. Some soldiers they were, to leave it to an unarmed civilian 'observer' to clean up the mess.

He was met by a hail of bullets. What the hell?

Kai brought up his arms to shield his face. That just left the bullets thudding into his torso. He shouted to let the soldiers know they were firing at the wrong guy, but it didn't seem to have any effect. They kept firing, forcing Kai back into the gym.

They didn't leave him any choice, did they? He flattened himself against the wall next to the door and grabbed the gun of the first soldier that came through the door. Kai tore the gun away from him, sending the soldier stumbling across the floor, further into the gym.

Kai tried to disassemble the gun, but it was an unfamiliar type and his fingers didn't seem to want to work for such a delicate task. The trigger assembly snapped when he tore at it, however, which did the job just as well. He relieved a second soldier of his weapon in a similar fashion, but by that time he was surrounded and hurting pretty badly from the bullets hitting him from all sides. He had to get out of here. But the corridors didn't leave him any room to move around, so if he wanted to escape through there, there wouldn't even be any room to evade bullets. He was stuck.

At that moment, the large gym window, starting six feet from the ground, shattered. Coming in through it was Haji, the cuts caused by the glass healing instantly. What was he doing here?

Haji shot forward, ignoring the bullets flying around. Some of the soldiers stopped firing because Haji was in their field of fire, and swore at him. He ignored them, too. He came straight at Kai, moving far faster than the soldiers had. Kai let him, because at least as long as Haji was close, there wouldn't be as many people shooting at him.

Then Haji did something unexpected. He i_attacked_./i Kai only just managed to block Haji's first claw-strike. He couldn't block the second, which came after Haji had somehow gotten behind him. The claw penetrated Kai's shoulder, and stayed there. It hurt more than the bullets did. Kai roared in pain, so loudly that he almost didn't hear Haji's words. He only heard them because Haji spoke directly in his ear. "Kai. Snap out of it."

Snap out of what? Why wouldn't Haji let go? Kai moved his other arm across his body to free himself of Haji's painful grasp. That's when he both got a look at his own hand i_and/i_ realized what he was looking at. Another chiropteran claw.

Oh shit. He'd allowed himself to forget about all of this again, in the conversation with Mao and during subsequent events. But his body clearly hadn't forgotten, and in the heat of combat, he'd transformed. No wonder the soldiers were shooting at him. They had no idea he was a friend.

Kai let his arm drop, foregoing any further struggle. Thankfully, because of Haji's presence, the soldiers weren't firing. He closed his eyes. He didn't even know when he'd started the transformation, let alone knowing how to reverse it. He sank to the floor, wanting to crawl away into a corner and feeling himself get smaller. He'd been an idiot.

Another burst of pain from his shoulder, however, sent him raring up again. "Not here," Haji said into his ear. "They'll know you. Get out first."

Well, that was a nice idea. One Kai had even already considered. But it wasn't like he had any options in that regard, either. And the soldiers wouldn't hold off firing because of Haji indefinitely. When Kai turned around, he could see from Captain Okura's stance that he was arguing with someone over his radio. As soon as that was decided, they'd start shooting again, Haji or no.

Haji caught his hesitation, too, and chipped in with more good advice. "Wings. Use them."

Kai looked at the gym window that Haji had come through. It offered a tempting view of blue sky and freedom. But even if he i_did/i_ have wings, Kai didn't know how to use them. On the other hand, he was stronger and faster now. Strong and fast enough to make a six, seven foot jump? It was worth a try, at least.

He walked away from the window, causing the soldiers to shout and scatter into a new formation. He took a run up and jumped. He cleared the windowsill effortlessly, even with Haji still hanging on. That put Kai in the school grounds, in full view of everyone. He couldn't transform here, but at least he had more room to move around. Time to try that flying again, then.

It took Kai several tries to get off the ground, but eventually he managed to sort of stay in the air. Haji clamped on tighter and gave instructions. He guided Kai to the grounds around Saya's resting place. There he indicated that Kai should set down, and finally let go to make his own descent.

Kai's landing was more of a crash, ending with him in a miserable heap. The fight and the flight and the pain had exhausted him, but he couldn't keep his eyes closed. Haji set down next to Kai, long bat wings folding away almost the instant he touched the ground. He helped Kai up, then half-carried him to a ramshackle hut surrounded by rose bushes.

Once inside, Kai sank to the floor again. Haji went to open a small refrigerator. He took out a transparent plastic bag containing a red liquid and tossed it to Kai. "You need this. Drink."

Kai caught the bag and bit down into it. Blood. He would have been disgusted at himself, but right now, the sensation of it flowing down his throat was too good for him to care. As soon as he finished it, Haji gave him another bag. Kai downed that, too. The pain was almost gone already, and he felt less tired.

Haji draped a blanket across his shoulders while he drank, but Kai didn't give it any attention. He was too focused on getting down the blood. He finished a third and fourth bag before he was rational again. Only then could he truly look at what he was drinking from. The bags were the same ones he'd seen hanging on the IV's for Elisa and Irene. He noticed something else, too. At some point, he had to have shifted back to his normal form, because the hands that held the bag were human again. That was really weird. He hadn't noticed feeling any different. He'd have to figure that out – just one more thing on the already substantial list. He looked up at Haji, sitting in a chair next to the refrigerator, and held up the empty bag. "Where did you get these?"

"Julia. She gave them to me yesterday."

"Oh." That made sense. Haji needed the blood, too. And David had scolded Haji for not coming to them for help. They might have forced Haji to accept this, even. "Sorry for drinking your supply." He bowed his head. "And thanks for the save, too."

Haji shook his head. "I don't need this much. Nor want it." He let a long silence fall. Before he finally spoke again, he averted his eyes. "I apologize."

Kai looked up and frowned. "What do you have to apologize for? It was my clumsiness that got us here." He leaned his head back against the wall and smiled ruefully. "Come to think of it, it was my clumsiness that got me like this, too."

"No." Haji shook his head. "I could have stopped Elisa. I let this happen."

Kai's head came back up so fast his neck hurt. "What? Why? You saw me fall?"

Haji shook his head again. "I heard the girls screaming. You had already fallen when I came."

"So why didn't you stop Elisa?" Kai asked.

"For Saya," Haji answered immediately. Well, there was a big surprise. But Haji continued. "She was happy with you. And she wanted the girls to grow up loved. You can give them that. I can't." He fell silent again.

Kai didn't really know what to say about that. He'd always tried to make sure the girls grew up well, and he'd kept the Omoro open because Saya would want to return there one day. And he'd found happiness in that, more at least than in racing around Okinawa on a motorcycle and getting kicked out of school. And certainly more than in hunting Chiropterans around the world. That fall would most likely have killed him without Elisa's intervention. Up until now, he had thought that would have been preferable, but would it really? He wouldn't have been able to take care of Elisa anymore if he was dead. He wouldn't have been able to see her grow up, and he wouldn't have been able to see Saya again, either. So, despite all the problems being made into a Chevalier had already caused and undoubtedly would cause, Kai couldn't find it in his heart to blame Haji.

He sighed, deliberately, and leaned back a little harder against the wall. "We're in a fine mess now, aren't we?"

"We can fix it," Haji said confidently. Then, after a brief pause, he continued with a lighter tone, "We have time."

Did Haji just make a joke? That seemed unlike him. But there was something about that statement that was off, anyway. Time should have lessened the number of Chiropteran infections, this one not included. Especially in areas that had been clean for a while, no re-infection should occur. But from what Mao had said this afternoon, if anything, more people were being infected again. Through the rats. But how had the rats gotten infected? Kai frowned. "You know, I wonder about that. With time, shouldn't there have been less people infected? So why aren't things fixed already?"

Haji blinked. He stared out blankly for quite a long time. Then he frowned as well. "I don't know. Maybe someone is still infecting people."

"Who?" Kai gestured toward Haji. "Presuming it wasn't you, on your way here." Haji looked at him sharply. Kai held up his hands. "Hey, just guessing. I mean, for years you were the only Chevalier unaccounted for."

"No."

Kai shook his head. "I didn't really think you were the one either. You must have come straight here as soon as you recovered, right?"

"No, I'm not the only Chevalier unaccounted for," Haji repeated. "Nathan is alive."

"What?" Kai shot to his feet. "Saya killed him!"

"He is alive. He dragged me out from under the rubble. He was badly hurt, but not as bad as I was. I didn't see him anymore after that. I don't know where he went."

"Damn him." Kai started pacing. That was all he needed. If Nathan was alive, then sooner or later he would be coming after Diva's daughters. In fact, it was a miracle he hadn't shown up already. "The mess just got messier."

"That it did," a woman said from the doorway of the cabin. Kai stopped and turned to face the newcomer.

Mao walked straight up to him and slapped him. "That's for not telling me," she said, then slapped him again. "That's for making my job even more difficult." She stopped, looked him over briefly, and then added a final slap. "And that's for the state of you now. Honestly. Get yourself fit to be seen." She handed him a packet of clothing. "I figured that that might have happened. Here. Put this on."

Kai looked down. There wasn't much left of his clothing; only a few tattered bits remained. He drew the blanket Haji had draped across his shoulders closed. "Sorry about that," he said. It hadn't even occurred to him yet to think about clothes, he'd been so preoccupied with other things. And it wasn't as if he was cold.

Mao shook her head, and with a sigh slumped down on the cot that served as a bed. She rubbed her temples. "You scared the shit out of me when you flew off carrying Haji. I thought we had an even bigger problem on our hands. Thank heavens I called David to warn him about it and he set me straight. Of course, that still left me to clean up the mess you left behind." She rolled her shoulders, then wiped her face with her hands. "And then I had to track you down to here." She glared at Haji. "You're not easy to find."

Haji remained unmoved by Mao's rebuke. "That was the idea," he said.

"Didn't want to be found, huh?" Mao asked him. "What good does that do?"

"Never mind that," Kai interrupted. "Is Elisa okay?" Haji clearly didn't want to talk about his own circumstances, and Kai really did want to know about his girls. Now that the worst was over, he wanted to get back to them. There was no knowing when Nathan might show up, after all.

Mao frowned, annoyed at the interruption. "Elisa and Irene are still fine. From what David said, the police officers got to deal with a few rats, but nothing they couldn't handle. Besides," she nodded at Haji, "he showed up halfway through and helped deal with them, before David told him where you'd gone."

"Can we go see them?"

Mao shrugged. "We'll have to walk back down the hill, but sure." She regarded him calmly. "We have a lot to talk about, after all."

Kai was already in the door. "Let's go, then."


	2. In Search of Nathan

Here we have part two. It's as far as I've got for now. This part is unbetaed. It took me so long to write that my beta disappeared in the meantime. I don't blame them. But, that does mean that if you see something strange, please please let me know so I can fix it.

Thank you, and enjoy,

XWA

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"Sergeant Saunders?"

Mike Saunders turned around quickly at the mention of his name. The guy who had called out his name pointed at the sign the sergeant was holding. "I think you're waiting for me," he said, holding up a Red Shield ID card to prove it. Then he held out his hand, "Kai Miyagusuku."

"Welcome to the US, sir," Mike said, then looked sheepishly at the sign. It read 'Mr. Miyagi'. Some joker from his squad had made it. Now, to be fair, the piece of card was a little small to carry the whole name in a readable size, but it really wouldn't have been hard to stick two pieces together. He tore it apart. "Sorry about that, sir."

Miyagusuku didn't take offense. He offered up a smile, instead, and shook his head. "I've had people mangle it worse." He lifted a small backpack. "Shall we?"

"Yes, sir." Mike indicated the direction they should go. "This way, sir." He let Miyagusuku take the lead. So far, the man wasn't living up to expectations.

The whole thing was unusual, actually. Normally, Red Shield only provided consultants, people skilled enough in the theoretical ways of dealing with Chiropterans, or 'mice', as the vernacular went in the US military, but not fighters. While they did have their own strike team, Red Shield only brought that in on the explicit request of the government of whatever country had an outbreak. And even then the strike team was only used to supplement and train the regular troops. This time, however, from what Mike had heard, Red Shield had contacted the American government and had not only asked permission to operate on US soil, they had urgently requested the cooperation of the US armed forces. They would never have been allowed to operate without that cooperation, of course, but still the request was made. And it had been made and granted quickly.

Mike's unit had only got the signal to move out late last night, and the strike would be made later this afternoon. That was apparently also the main reason Red Shield had requested the help of the Special Forces the US maintained to keep Chiropterans in check. There wasn't enough time to bring in a large enough number of Red Shield soldiers. Yet despite the brief time-frame, they had insisted on bringing over this guy from Japan, even jamming him in on the earliest commercial flight because it would take too long to get their own transports there. From that kind of urgency to include Miyagusuku, Mike would have expected him to be some sort of superman. Or at least to look a little more like a soldier.

He barely even looked Japanese! The only indication he was Asian was a slight slant to his eyes. He was about as tall as Mike, his skin was pale even for a white guy, and his hair was reddish-brown. He did have an accent, but it wasn't very heavy at all.

They reached the exit and Miyagusuku looked back at Mike for guidance. Mike now led the way to the car (a rental; a military Jeep would have been too obvious). Miyagusuku got in without a further word. He kept silent, too, for the first part of the drive. He spent the time looking around and tapping his fingers on the windowsill. What did he have to be nervous about?

Mike wasn't the chatty type, but the weird situation and, oddly enough, his guest's silence drove him to talking. "You do this a lot, sir?"

Miyagusuku started, as if he hadn't expected to be spoken to. He was slow to answer, too. "Not really," he said. "I only get asked for the really bad ones. And a few special cases." He stared ahead, at the road for a short time. "Do you know what happened in Brazil six years ago?"

"Cleanup of Rio, sir?" That had been a much-publicized happening. It wasn't all that often that the UN sent troops to actually destroy most of a city. It had happened a few times since, but that had been the first time. As a matter of fact, Colonel O'Hare had been there as well, as part of the American delegation.

Miyagusuku nodded. "Got it in one. That was the first time I did something like this."

-x-

Kai came home to find the back door unlocked. Inside, Mao had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. She had to have let herself in, then fallen asleep waiting for Kai to come home. He wondered briefly why she would have come to see him, especially at this hour, but then decided it couldn't have been important enough to wake her up. She would have called him, were that the case.

He put a blanket over Mao's shoulders and went to take a quick shower. He still stank of the greasy kitchen he worked at. He could take it, but there was no need to subject Mao to it.

When Kai came out of the shower, Mao was still asleep. Now he saw that she had fallen asleep on top of the biology textbook he'd been planning to read. Oh well. Then he might as well make a start preparing breakfast and the girls' lunches.

He had just finished frying the eggs when Mao stirred. "Something smells good," she mumbled, then frowned. She pushed herself upright and rubbed her face. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Good morning," Kai said, and set a cup of tea in front of her. "You did." He put away the book Mao had used for a pillow and started laying the table. "So why did you show up at night?"

Mao ran her hands through her hair, pulling loose strands into a rough ponytail. "I was jet-lagged anyway, and David told me you worked nights." She nodded in the direction of the locked-up restaurant. "I just thought you'd be working them _here_."

Kai snorted. "I'd actually have to be a consistently good chef if I ever want to make anything of the Omoro again." He shook his head. "As it is, I can't keep enough customers to make a profit, so I had to close it down."

Mao eyed the eggs on the counter next to the stove, then walked over and tasted them. "This isn't bad."

Kai smiled. "I got lucky today." He pointed to the cookbook that was also on the counter. "I know all the basics. As long as I stick tightly to the recipes, then I'm fine while there's nothing funny going on with the ingredients. But if the eggs are larger, the peppers sweeter, or I left the fire a bit high or whatever, I can't fix it. I regularly get an earful from Elisa about it." He smiled sheepishly, then shrugged. "For a fast-food restaurant it's fine because nobody expects great cooking there. But from a normal restaurant, people expect a little more originality."

Mao frowned. "That's too bad," she said sympathetically. "The place deserved to be thriving." She sighed. "Or maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking."

"Much as I loved the place, it probably is. The Omoro was home." Kai, finished with the morning's tasks, sat down on the chair opposite the one Mao had taken. "And speaking of 'home', you're usually more than keen to avoid it, so what brings you here?"

Mao groaned and slumped down on her chair. "_Don't_ start about my father, please. He's still got Okamura convinced that if he ever shows his face in Japan again, my father will have him killed." She walked back to the table and sat down. "It's probably not true, but Okamura's not taking any risks. However…" She shook her head and squared her shoulders. "I'm not here to talk about my daddy issues."

"I thought as much," Kai replied with a smirk. Then he looked up as he heard stumbling from upstairs. He checked the clock. "Time for the girls to get up." He got up and finished putting the food on the table.

It didn't take long for Irene to come racing down, calling back to Elisa to hurry up. "Hello, aunt Mao," she greeted Mao, "nice to see you again."

"_Aunt_?" Mao asked, sounding mildly insulted. "Hasn't anyone told you it's not polite to call people that if they haven't asked you to?"

Irene's reply was forestalled by Elisa coming down, looking distinctly disheveled. She, too, greeted Mao with "Good morning, aunt Mao." Mao just groaned, this time.

"Oh come on now, girls, be polite," Kai interrupted. Mao shot him a look of gratitude, but he winked at her and continued, "Mao's had a promotion at her job. She's now a director, so you should call her 'Chairman' Mao, you know."

Irene, who had kept up with her history lessons, giggled immediately. Elisa looked nonplussed for a second, then laughed anyway. Mao scowled at Kai, and sighed. "Fine, if you're going to be like that, just call me Mao, okay?"

"Yes Ma'am, Chairman Mao." Irene saluted her with a grin, then quickly finished her breakfast and picked up her lunchbox. "Come on, Elisa, we're going to be late."

Elisa stuffed the last bits of her breakfast in her mouth while Kai helped her into her coat and handed her another lunchbox. He wished both of them a fun day at school, then sat staring after them until well after they were out of view.

"So how often do you follow them to school?" Mao asked.

Kai shook his head to clear it. Then he smiled. "Every day for about a month. Then Elisa caught me at it and made me promise not to do it again." He raised his voice in a fairly reasonable imitation of Elisa's: "We're old enough to go by ourselves now, Kai, you don't have to follow us." He stopped the imitation. "So I don't. Often."

Mao smiled. "A real dad, I guess."

Kai's smile fell. "I'm not so sure." He rubbed his hands over his face. "But you're not here to talk about _my_ daddy issues either, Mao." Kai got up to pour another cup of tea, then sat down and folded his arms with an air of finality. "What brings the new Director of Operations for Red Shield back down to Okinawa?"

"You knew about that, huh?" Mao scowled. "Could have said something sooner."

"Hey, I can talk to David a lot more easily than you can." Kai shrugged. "Although it was Julia who told me. Congratulations, by the way. You've worked hard enough for it."

"Thanks." Mao nodded her acknowledgment of the compliment. Then she sighed. "Unfortunately, that's also why I'm here."

Kai sat up straight, frowning. "I don't think I'm going to like this."

Mao held out a hand. "Hear me out first, please." At Kai's nod, she continued. "I think I told you about Brazil once, right?"

"Constant outbreaks of people transforming into Chiropterans in the slums of Rio de Janeiro," Kai confirmed. "It's been in the papers, too. It's been getting worse again, lately, it seems."

Mao nodded. "We had things almost under control. We made sure to exterminate all the vermin we could catch, and we've been working on a new vaccine that would protect against Diva's bloodline, not just counteract the effects of Cinq Flèches' conversion drugs. We had some limited success elsewhere. It worked in Rio, too, for a while. But the last few months, the vaccines just don't seem to be working."

"That doesn't sound too good."

Mao shook her head. "No. It's so bad, in fact, that the government of Brazil has finally given up trying to contain it. They've requested help from the UN to clean up this mess, and Red Shield has been hired to provide the expertise in dealing with Chiropterans."

Kai leaned back in his chair. "Good luck with that."

Mao allowed an upward twitch of her lips. "We are used to doing things like this. It's just that the scale is several orders of magnitude above anything we've done before, and we could use all the extra hands we can get."

-x-

Miyagusuku filled up the rest of the drive to the base with small talk. Mike pressed him a little about

Brazil – it was as good a chance as any to find out about what they might be dealing with here, but apart from an assurance that this case wouldn't be nearly as bad - not within several orders of magnitude - Miyagusuku didn't go into any details.

At the base, they were greeted by the Red Shield contact, an oversized black man who greeted Miyagusuku like an old friend. And in Japanese.

Mike's knowledge of Japanese was limited to a few random words picked up during a youthful obsession with anime. It was more than most of his squadmates would have managed, but it wasn't nearly enough to follow the conversation. All he could pick up on was that Lewis asked Miyagusuku about his daughters, and the response to that question was very lively and animated. It looked like Miyagusuku really opened up to his friends, although why a man who clearly loved his children would do this kind of work was a bit of a puzzle. In any case, Miyagusuku's mood dropped considerably once he caught sight of Colonel O'Hare.

The Colonel was waiting just inside the base. That surprised Mike, who had expected his commanding officer to only come out of his office for the mission briefing. He had, after all, no particular reason to meet the special representative of Red Shield. His liaison was, and would still be, Lewis.

Miyagusuku greeted the Colonel with a slight bow. "Colonel. It's good to see you."

Colonel O'Hare regarded the man with deep distaste. "Kept us waiting," he said, not even acknowledging the greeting. "This way." Then he turned around and led the way into the base.

Mike was briefly surprised when the Colonel walked right past the briefing room, and then even more surprised when the door he did open was the one to the infirmary. "Here we are." He addressed Lewis. "I'm going to brief my men. Be ready to go in half an hour. You…" he turned toward Mike, "stay here. Keep an eye on these two." Then, without even waiting for Mike's "Yes, sir", he was gone again.

"Friendly sort, isn't he?" Lewis remarked, to nobody in particular. But he did it in English, so Mike shrugged in response.

Miyagusuku, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention at all. He was checking the contents of one of the coolers. The cooler had a note stuck on the outside with Miyagusuku's name on it. From the brief glimpse Mike got of the contents, there was a lot of whole blood in there.

Miyagusuku closed the cooler again and checked the stack of equipment – a uniform and weapons, but no ammunition - that had been left on the desk. Then he looked toward Lewis and asked something in Japanese.

Lewis shook his head and responded in English. "I don't think O'Hare'd allow you the dignity. But there's not enough time for it, anyway. Better just drink up."

"Right." Miyagusuku switched to English as well and started to change into the clothing. "What about my chase team?"

Lewis picked up one of the weapons, and took it apart to check for dirt. He easily put it back together. "Looks like I'm it. There's nobody else from Red Shield around. O'Hare said he'd make up the numbers on the team himself."

Miyagusuku's eyes widened. "I see." He turned toward. "I guess that makes you the fourth man, sergeant. What did you do to make your Colonel dislike you that much?"

"Sir?" Mike had no idea what the two of them were talking about. As far as he was aware, the Colonel didn't like him any more or less than any other soldier under his command.

"You just got volunteered for a very risky job, and you weren't even briefed about it," Lewis explained.

"I signed up for a risky job, sir," Mike countered. "And we got called out so fast there hasn't been time for extensive briefings. That's not unusual, either."

Miyagusuku nodded. "I can understand that attitude, sergeant." He had finished changing his clothes, and now wore a set of urban camouflage gear that seemed to have been made for Lewis rather than Miyagusuku. It hung loosely off his hips and shoulders. Oddly enough, he hadn't exchanged his sneakers for combat boots. Miyagusuku looked at Lewis. "Can you give the instructions?"

"Did you bring the tranqs?"

"In the bag." Miyagusuku pointed to the bag he'd brought himself.

"Then yes, of course."

"Good." Miyagusuku nodded, then walked back to the refrigerator and took out one of the bags of blood. "Take a good look at what you'll be up against, sergeant," he said. Then he bit into the top of the bag, and, with every sign of enjoyment, started drinking the blood.

-x-

"No."

"What?" Mao seemed surprised by Kai's reply to her still unspoken request.

"I can see where this is going," Kai said, "and the answer is 'no'. No way." Kai leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. Mao was going to ask him to _help_, but he was in no position to do that. "I have to take care of Elis— the girls." He rubbed his eyes. "And I think I have a better chance of keeping people safe just staying here."

"Don't talk nonsense." Mao leaned forward across the table. "We need your strength and your experience. And we can find someone to take care of the girls. If all else fails, we'll take them to a Red Shield safe house. They'll be protected by our people."

That would leave the girls in the hands of Red Shield, something Kai didn't want to happen if at all possible. But that wasn't a point that he could argue with Mao. He'd lost that argument before he'd been able to think to offer it, because it was through Red Shield that he had the girls at all. There were other arguments, however, that might have a little more power. They were just as true, and if Mao had been talking to David, she should know about them already, too. "And what about protecting anybody from me?"

Mao frowned, looking confused. "Why would anyone need protecting from you?"

"I have control issues." Kai sighed deliberately. "I know you talked to David. Don't tell me he kept that to himself. I still haven't got any sort of solid control over how or when I get into Chiropteran form, and I'm liable to go berserk if I don't get enough blood."

"He told me there were a few incidents he helped cover up, yes." Mao closed her eyed and slowly nodded. Then she opened her eyes again to look at Kai. "He also told me the last incident was almost a year ago. You seem to have gotten past it."

"Only because I'm _here_." Kai jabbed a finger down on the table for emphasis. "I know everyone I'm likely to run into here, and I know exactly how to avoid situations where I would feel the need to be stronger or faster." He let his head hang. "And I'm more motivated because I don't want Elisa and Irene to find out."

One corner Mao's mouth twitched upward. "It's not exactly as if we'd have any objection to you using that strength to help." She forestalled Kai's next comment by simply not pausing before the next sentence. "And we can get you blood, too."

"Sure," Kai said, letting some sarcasm shimmer through, "and I'm sure you can get it to me in the middle of a battlefield as well, if necessary." He shook his head. "I need a lot of blood to keep from going on a rampage _here_. If I get hurt, I'll need more blood, and probably a lot of it, right there and then, or I could attack anyone who's too slow to get away." He looked up. "Which would be just about everyone."

Mao frowned. "It's not _that_ bad, surely?"

"It is." Kai looked down at his hands. This was going to be difficult. "Elisa and Irene get blood about once every month. Three weeks, maybe. I need as much as they get, every week, just to keep from going crazy. When I lost it the first time, I was on the same schedule as they were, and Julia just started giving me more after that. But that didn't help." He shook his head. "I don't know why that is. Haji doesn't need even half as much as the twins do. I haven't ever seen him drink any."

"Haji does seem to be a bit of a control freak," Mao said sympathetically, "and he's also a lot older than you."

Kai forced a brief smile, then turned serious again. "He thinks it could be because Julia pumped me full of blood right after Elisa turned me. Maybe my body's gotten used to a regular supply." He shrugged. "It's a theory."

"You talk a lot with Haji?" Mao asked.

Kai nodded. "He helped me get what control I have. Like you said, he's got experience with it." He looked up at Mao. "He's also had to keep me down when I lost control. It just doesn't come that easily to me."

Mao leaned forward, a mischievous smile on her face. "Want Red Shield to help with that?" She sat up straight again. "Research has been working on tranquilizers that'll work for Chiropterans – it's a lot easier to put them down if they're slowed down or completely asleep. We've got one that looks promising. It could help you keep control of yourself, too."

"You mean I can drug myself up to the point where I couldn't hurt anyone even if I wanted to, is that it?" Kai remained defensive, but in truth, he was tempted. Haji was a pretty strict teacher, and Kai'd picked up some meditation techniques to help calm himself down if necessary, but it still didn't always work. And he couldn't keep on relying on Haji and David to calm him down and cover up his screwups. Then again… "And to get this—" he started.

"—help in Brazil," Mao and he finished together.

Kai mimicked a sigh. "Mao, even if these drugs work, I can't take them going into combat. Which means they won't solve any of the problems I have with going in there."

Mao copied the sigh, probably for real. "We can set up a plan so we'll have someone nearby who can administer the sedatives, keep you calm until we can get you some blood. Yes, in the middle of a battlefield." Mao folded her hands. "They invented portable coolers for a reason."

Kai remained quiet. He didn't want to agree, even though Mao so far had at the very least tried to find solutions for every objection he could voice. He didn't want to say yes, but she was running him out of options. She hadn't gotten that director's post for nothing.

"So?" Mao knew he was running out of arguments, so she pressed the matter.

Kai had one possible counter left. It wasn't all that much, but it might just be enough. Haji had broken his total isolation to help Kai, but he had remained aloof from pretty much everything else. It was extremely unlikely he'd agree to come. He let his head hang. "Okay." He looked up again, and raised a hand to stop Mao from saying anything. "On one condition. Haji agrees to come along. If I lose control, he at least can stop me."

Mao's grin widened. "Well, that's decided, then." At Kai's look of surprise, she explained. "I talked to Haji yesterday evening. He agreed to come if you came." She pushed herself up out of her chair. "I guess we'd better start making arrangements to get you to Brazil."

-x-

Lewis explained the function of the dart gun that fired the tranquilizer darts. Mike listened with about half his attention and when prompted disassembled and reassembled the weapon. The other half of his attention, however, he kept focused on Miyagusuku. He had emptied the first bag of blood, and was now close to finishing a second one. "Sir, what are you doing?"

Miyagusuku didn't respond until he'd finished the second bag. Then he walked to the exam table and lifted himself to sit on it. "I was drinking the blood," he said when he was seated, "but that's not the question you wanted to ask, is it?"

"It was, sir." Mike's reasoning hadn't gotten beyond that, yet. Although there _was_ a follow-up question. "Why, sir?" Among his squadmates, it might have been a great show of machismo; it was also the kind of stunt troops at this level were expected to be too mature to pull. Besides, there was nobody here to impress except Mike, and really the context for impressing him was wrong as well. And if it really _was_ a stunt, there'd be no need for the second bag.

"Because I need it," Miyagusuku answered matter-of-factly. "And I need it because I'm a Chiropteran."

Mike raised the tranq gun he was still holding in reflex, before the ridiculousness of that statement penetrated. Then he laughed. "Yeah right. Good joke, sir." Chiropterans were huge, violent beast, not scrawny people. Yes, they went after people's blood, but then again, they might just as easily go for the meat. They bit big enough chunks out of their victims.

"Not a joke," Lewis confirmed.

"There are different types of Chiropterans, were you ever briefed on that?" Miyagusuku shook his head. "It's very unlikely. That's not something Red Shield likes to become common knowledge." He smiled briefly. "And the American government apparently agrees."

"What you'd call 'Mice' is the most common type – the violent beasts, just smart enough to be even more dangerous," Lewis added. "But there's other kinds that stay more human. Like him." He nodded at Miyagusuku. "They're rare, but they exist."

"Whatever you say, sir." It wasn't Mike's place to object, and he'd keep this information in mind, but he still had a hard time believing any of it.

Miyagusuku seemed to be able to tell. He smiled. "I don't think you believe me, sergeant." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, if I tried to prove it to you here and now, we'd never get around to the mission."

"Yes, sir." Mike still hadn't heard what the mission was, exactly, so he couldn't really say much else. "And what is the mission, sir?"

Lewis answered that one. "We think we have a lead on the last remaining director of Cinq Fleches, Nathan Mahler."

"Who is also Chiropteran," Miyagusuku interrupted, "and that's why I'm here. If Nathan decides to get violent, your people won't know what hit them until he's long gone. I should at least be able to keep up with him."

Lewis took over again. "The job for your colleagues is to deal with any distractions he may have set up, and help Kai corner Nathan, so we can take him into custody, or kill him if necessary. But we'd like to capture him alive." He gestured at the weapon in Mike's hands, then continued. "The dart gun you've got there shoots darts that contain a sedative strong enough to kill most humans. One dart'll slow down most 'Mice' long enough for you to run away, if necessary. But that's not what we've got them for."

Mike held up the gun. "So our job is to shoot Nathan?"'

"No," Miyagusuku said. "Well, not with these," he then corrected himself. "If you get the chance, you could try to shoot him with your normal gun. "

"Why not these, sir?"

"It's very unlikely they'll work." Miyagusu picked one of the darts out of an ammo belt and held it up. "These things were fine-tuned for me, and… well, it's a long, science-riddled explanation that basically boils down to that, even if the sedative works on him, it'll be much weaker. Shooting him with it wouldn't do you much good. _I'm_ here to capture Nathan.

"The real reason for my chase team is to make sure _I_ don't go out of control." He got up from the exam table and turned to face Mike fully. "There is a chance, if I get hurt too badly, that I'll lose control and start attacking friends." He shook his head. "I don't want to do that – I don't want to hurt anyone – and I've taken precautions against it, but it could still happen." He looked Mike in the eyes. "If it does, you shoot me. And you keep shooting until I drop."

Mike wanted to reply to that, saying all this was too ridiculous for words, but the Colonel chose that moment to reenter the room. "All done?" he asked.

"As much as possible, Colonel," Miyagusuku answered, but the Colonel ignored him.

"They brief you?" he asked Mike instead. At Mike's nod, he beckoned for Mike to come into the hallway. Once the door to the infirmary was closed, the colonel asked again, "What did they tell you?"

Mike recounted the story mechanically, refraining from making any comment. Strangely enough, the Colonel seemed to believe it. He nodded. "Good. At least they told you the truth, even if not all of it. That thing is dangerous. I don't understand why Red Shield hasn't killed it yet. You don't let it out of your sight. The second you even _suspect _it's going to do something, you first pump it full of darts, and then you start with the bullets. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The Colonel opened the door to the infirmary again and spoke into the room. "We're moving out."

"Ready to go?"

Mao entered the room of the evacuated hospital Red Shield was using as a base. A medic had just finished removing the IV needle from Kai's arm, and Kai was buttoning his shirt. Haji had watched the whole procedure from a corner of the room.

Kai sighed. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. Let's go."

"We're going to assign you to an American platoon today," Mao said while Kai and his team strapped on their equipment and checked their weapons. "There's a higher than expected amount of transformations in their sector, and they've requested additional personnel from us. "

The reward for hard work still was more work, it appeared. Kai had arrived in Brazil after a week of training and testing in the no-man's-land in Vietnam, where a large area had been given over to the Chiropterans that had appeared there due to experiments from Cinq Flèches. This in order to get used to the people he'd be working with, and to confirm the sedatives worked. They did, though not as well as Kai had hoped. They weren't even half as effective as Red Shield had thought they'd be, based on their tests. Still, they should work to subdue him, if he got them in sufficient quantities.

Then the team had come to Brazil and had been assigned a section of Rio to clean up – typically a few streets per day. Kai and Haji had proven very efficient at sniffing out the contaminated rats, and far more efficient than the Red Shield troops at dealing with any transformed humans. They'd even managed to catch one, for the Red Shield scientists to study and find out why the vaccines were no longer working. In the three days they'd worked so far, they'd gotten ahead of their schedule, and continuing now would take them too deeply into areas where there'd be no support, and the cleanup there would be undone after a night because the chiropterans would just come back in from the surrounding streets. So today they'd be supporting nearby areas that had fallen behind on their schedule.

On the way there, Kai studied the map of the area they'd be patrolling today. It was a more upmarket neighborhood, not one of the slums like he'd been working in for the past few days. On the one hand, there were probably fewer nooks and crannies for the rats to hide in. On the other hand, there were multiple floors to check, and line-of-sight would be significantly reduced.

When they reached the checkpoint where the American forces were waiting for them, their reception was less than cordial. Kai was introduced to the commanding officer, a Major O'Hare.

"I didn't ask for you," the Major greeted him. "I have trouble enough when the higher-ups just let me get on with my job. Now they want me to babysit civilians, as well."

Friendly fellow, that. Nevertheless, Kay shook his hand politely. "I thought you requested our assistance, Major."

"I didn't," the Major cut him off, "I was ordered to accommodate you in my plans by General Newstone." He shook his head. "I hear your people are good at finding these damn mice and rats."

"We've had good luck with that in the past few days, yes," Kai confirmed.

The Major nodded. "Good." He used his hand to metaphorically chop the team in three. "You two are with third squad," he said to Haji and the team leader, then indicated two team members, "You can join second, and you," he turned to Kai after glancing at the remaining team member, "can join me with the first squad."

"Um," Kai wasn't quite sure how to interrupt. "We usually work as a single team. I don't like to be without my team."

"What, you can't handle cooperation with professional soldiers?" the Major asked, drawing matching frowns from the Red Shield soldiers –all of whom had been the elite of their respective countries' armed forces before joining Red Shield and receiving more training. The Major ignored them. "If you can't even do that, you can't really expect me to trust you and your team not getting in the way while we do our work, can you?"

"I must insist, Major," Kai persisted. In an already strange situation and with only one backup his situation was precarious enough already. He kept up the argument with the increasingly annoyed Major O'Hare until he had persuaded the commander to at least let the two people the Major had assigned to second squad come along with Kai. That still meant no Haji and left his team without their usual commander, but Major O'Hare wouldn't budge on that point.

"If I understand the whole thing right, you and Mr. Long-hair over there are the best trackers. There's absolutely no point to have you both in the same squad, " the Major ended the argument. "Now let's move out!"

-x-

The building they were going to assault was a large freestanding villa. It looked far more likely to house some minor movie star who wanted somewhere to stay outside of Tinseltown than to play home to a bloodsucking mad scientist who had to hide from pretty much the entire international community.

Troops were planned to enter through all four possible entrances on the ground floor and through the balconies on the first floor using ladders, then converge on the central room, in this case a sitting room on the first floor. A small team would guard the tunnel that lead outside through the basement (also very Hollywood, that). Miyagusuku, and with him Mike, the Colonel and Lewis, would enter through the garden entrance, before the normal assault troops, and proceed according to Miyagusuku's judgment.

It all happened exactly like planned, and it almost felt a little silly to Mike. At least with exercises, they tended to play sound tapes of gunfire or Mouse roars. Now, at first, nothing. Complete and utter silence.

Miyagusuku moved his head around, scanning the surroundings. Then he nodded to the leader of the team also entering through the big glass doors and set off in a different direction.

He moved differently now. Gone was the nonchalance he'd shown at the airport and even, up to a point, at the base. He was clearly tense now, and his face was drawn with concentration. He led Mike and the others through the house quickly, at a pace that had Mike breathing hard after getting up the back stairs. The Colonel, in peak condition but not the youngest anymore, was breathing even harder. Mike hadn't really expected Lewis to keep up, what with his bulk, but he was still there as well.

Miyagusuku halted them in the middle of a hallway, cocking his head as if listening for something. Just as he started moving again, a panicked call came over the radio. It was accompanied by the sounds of gunfire carrying through the house.

"This is Six. We got Mice in the tunnel, a fucking army of 'em!"

The Colonel was responding almost before the message was finished. "Keep your underwear clean, Six. All units converge on the basement." He broke off the transmission, then shouted after Miyagusuku, who was still headed in the opposite direction. "That means us, too."

"It's a distraction," Miyagusuku argued, "Our target is going that way." He pointed down the hallway.

"I don't really _care_ about your target," the Colonel said, almost calmly, "I do care about my men, and they're in trouble. You claim you can help, go help."

"I came here for Nathan." Miyagusuku made no move to rush to the aid of the soldiers. He spoke just as calmly as the Colonel, but his hands were curled into fists, and the words he spoke sounded clipped, as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. "He's causing this. Catch him, and he won't be able to trigger any more transformations. Your men are trained soldiers. They can take care of themselves." He made a move to continue after Nathan.

The Colonel brought up his tranq gun under Miyagusuku's chin, stopping the man in his tracks. "Oh no you don't, you friggin' leech. One more step in that direction and I'll put one of these in your brain, and we'll see how much chasing you'll do then. You asked for _our _help this time, and I'm not letting my men get killed over it. You got something to make up for, in my book."

"Kai, he has a point," Lewis spoke into the stalemate, the voice of reason. "Those Mice iare/i the more direct danger, and we don't really want more bodies."

"Which there will be if Nathan keeps escaping," Miyagusuku answered, but then nodded carefully.

"Fine, Colonel, we'll do it your way." Before the Colonel could even twitch a muscle, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and disarmed the Colonel. With a brief nod, he handed the gun back and set off down the corridor.

"After him!" the Colonel shouted, but Miyagusuku's pace was now impossible to keep up with. They'd have to trust he was really going down to the basement to help deal with the Chiropterans there.

Mike ran back down the stairs as fasts as his legs would carry him, leaving the Colonel and Lewis behind. The sounds of gunfire and Mouse roars quickly increased in volume. It was still a surprise when turning a corner on the ground floor, Mike suddenly found himself face to face with an injured Chiropteran.

He didn't have time to react. The thing was moving towards him already, and by the time he could bring his gun in line, it would already be on Mike. He tried anyway, but in the next instant it would be bye-bye to Mrs Saunders' little boy.

Something else moved between them, so fast Mike could only see a blur. He was shoved towards the wall, while the Chiropteran was sent flying with a forceful tackle. It landed on its back several yards away, already moving to get up before it had even slid to a halt.

The rescuer was Miyagusuku. He stood between Mike and the Chiropteran and pulled his pistol – the only firearm he carried. He put two rounds into the Chiropteran's chest. When the creature opened its mouth to roar, he put a third bullet into its skull, through the opened mouth. The Chiropteran's skull exploded outwards, and the remains of the body slumped to the ground.

"Sergeant, are you okay?" Miyagusuku asked. Mike didn't answer, but kept his eyes fixed on the slowly crystallizing body of the Chiropteran. He hadn't seen this before. Hell, he hadn't ever been this close to a live Chiropteran before.

Standard procedure for dealing with Mice was to decapitate them with grenades, or, if the situation didn't allow for that, to do the same thing with fully automatic gunfire at fairly long range. The pistol clips everyone was issued with were loaded with alternating rounds – two armor-piercing and one exploding. It was theoretically possible to kill a Chiropteran in three shots, but the pistol was a weapon of last resort. Mike hadn't heard of the technique actually _working_, ever. It required faster reflexes and a steadier hand than such a situation tended to allow for. But Miyagusuku had just done it, by the book, as if he'd been standing on a shooting range, while Mike was still recovering from the shock of seeing a Mouse that up close and personal.

"Sergeant!" Miyagusuku's second call snapped Mike out of it. "Are you hurt? Did you get blood on you?" He was giving Mike a quick check, and Mike performed the double-check.

"Nothing, sir. Thank you."

"You're my back-up, sergeant, not the other way around. I need you alive." Miyagusuku helped Mike up, then nodded toward the basement. "I came up after this one. There's still plenty of trouble down there, though. You're better off staying up here."

The man looked different, now. His skin, already pale, now looked grayish, and the whites of his eyes were so bloodshot they were completely red. He looked like some creature from a horror movie. Which he probably was, come to think of it. He just hadn't seemed it until now.

Miyagusuku caught Mike's stare, frowned, and took a look at his own hands. "Sorry sergeant, I didn't mean to scare you.'' He smiled, showing elongated canines for good measure. "I barely even realize when this happens, especially in these situations."

"I'm not scared, sir," Mike denied, "just surprised, is all." He straightened up completely. "I can't wait up here, sir. Orders were to go down and help the others."

Miyagusuku had his eyes closed, and opened and closed his fists a few times. As he did it, some of the color returned to his skin. When he opened his eyes again, the whites of were also mostly the proper color again. "As you wish, sergeant. Do stay out of the way. It will get messy down there."

"Yes, sir." It was a superfluous observation, but it was in some ways a comfort, these friendly words from a decidedly no longer friendly face. "Sir? Was this the proof you didn't want to show me earlier?"

"What?" Miyagusuku looked confused for a split second, then shook his head. He raised his hand.

"This is – an intermediate, is the word, I think. I'm trying to stay human, but it's not quite working. It tends to happen when I have to fight." He grimaced. "The full transformation is worse."

Couldn't hurt to ask. "What's it like?"

"You ever read _the Hulk?_"

"I've seen the movies, sir."

"Well, it's nothing like that."

-x-

"We've got trouble coming up, Major," Kai warned. He pointed away from the house they'd just cleaned out. "At least three Chiropterans in that direction, probably more, and I think they're moving." Quite possibly the scent of blood from the house they were in attracted them. Kai had a little trouble ignoring it, himself.

It had all started out well enough. Kai guided the Americans to two nests of rats, and they were duly exterminated. He could stay well back, since the soldiers didn't really seem to appreciate him being at the forefront of the exercise anyway. Even the first full-fledged Chiropteran they came across, all by itself, was handled well enough without Kai stepping in, though he regretted the enormous amounts of ammunition being expended just to make sure one 'Mouse' stayed dead. It still hadn't finished crystallizing, but more trouble was already on the way.

"Damn," the Major said, then pulled out his radio to call the commanders of his other squads.

"Danvers, Rodriguez, what's your status?"

"Pretty busy here, sir," Danvers replied over the radio. "We'll handle it, but we won't be able to back anyone up anytime soon." He was hard to understand over the background chatter of gunfire.

"Same here, " Rodriguez came in. "We're holding off two Mice. We'll hold out. The Red Shield guy warned us so we could set up cover."

Kai whistled. That was as many Chiropterans than they'd come across in their own sector, all in one day, and all at the same time. Well, at least the American command hadn't been exaggerating about the troubles in their sector.

"I'm calling in our helos," Major O'Hare replied to both of them, and proceeded to do so. Then he turned to the lieutenant nominally in command of the squad. "Looks like we'll be on our own for a while. What can we set up for cover?"

Kai joined in the deliberations, although the only input that was accepted was on where the Chiropterans would be attracted to, so that the squad's positions could take this into account. O'Hare assigned Kai's team positions in the defense without so much as a by-your-leave. The Major ordered Kai to stay with him, and that was that.

The discussion didn't take long. It couldn't, because it had barely started when the blasts of gunfire from a forward position announced that the Chiropterans had been spotted. Kai was pulled behind cover by O'Hare. He didn't stay there long, however, because very quickly the roars of the Chiropterans became audible even over the cacophony of shots. Even worse, soon after that the unmistakable smell of human blood assaulted his senses. The Chiropterans had gotten to one of the soldiers.

He was useless back here, under cover. He wasn't qualified with an automatic rifle, so all he had was his trusty pistol. Which was fine, but even he couldn't fire that at this distance and have a hope of hitting what he wanted to hit. He'd have to get in closer.

Kai was away from his cover in the blink of an eye, effortlessly evading O'Hare's hand grabbing for him and ignoring the curses the Major sent after him. The position under assault wasn't far away, and the point from where Kai could usefully shoot was even closer. He emptied an entire clip into the closest Chiropteran. Unfortunately the creature wouldn't do him the favor of turning around and opening its mouth, so it took all of those bullets to dent the skull. If it even had. The Chiropteran might still be alive, but at least it was out of it for now.

One of the soldiers being assaulted was still alive. Kai grabbed the back of his flak vest and pulled him away, shoving the soldier in the direction of his previous cover. He himself switched clips and finished the job on the recovering Chiropteran. He was going to run out of ammunition soon if this kept up.

"Get down!" another soldier behind Kai shouted, and he obligingly ducked behind what little cover remained between the crystallizing Chiropteran and the dead body of a soldier. Bullets flew over his head to thud into a second Chiropteran, coming to check out the scent of blood right here. Not that those bullets did much good. Instead, they drew the Chiropteran's attention to fresher blood, and it shifted its path. Right into crossfire that decapitated it.

Kai heard the soldier who had presumably fired the killing shots whoop. At the same time, the soldier Kai had rescued came forward with two colleagues to collect the body of their comrade. One tapped Kai on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Kai answered, but he was on his feet again and scanning around for the other Chiropteran. There had to be at least one more. But it was hard to tell where he should be found now, with the blood confusing Kai's senses. He shook his head to clear it. It didn't really help.

"You sure? You don't look too good."

"I am perfectly okay," Kai reiterated distractedly. He was straining his ears in the hope of hearing where the remaining Chiropteran had hidden himself, since his nose was now near useless and his eyes only had limited line of sight.

But then he _did_ catch a scent underneath all the different types of blood, and the felt the hairs on the

back of his neck rise. This wasn't just a Chiropteran. And it wasn't Haji, either. Which meant it could be only one person.

Nathan.

So this was where he'd been hiding himself all these years, and causing this whole mess alongside it. Damn him.

Kai took off at speed, only just catching the exclamations of surprise from the soldiers behind him. He was probably going a bit too fast to be humanly possible, but at this point he didn't care. If he caught Nathan, everything would be over, and he could have peace again, together with Elisa and Irene.

He followed the scent, leaving the squad far behind. Somewhere in the back of his head the thought registered that if Nathan hadn't been near his squad, then there had to be another Chiropteran out there, but he didn't pay any attention to it. Nathan was the greater threat.

While Kai was tracking him, he could tell Nathan was moving. He needed more speed to catch up. He couldn't do that with the armor he had on restricting him. It was useless anyway. He tore it off, then grabbed onto the nearest windowsill and used it as a jump-off point to get to the roof of the building. He'd have better line of sight there.

Sure enough, as soon as he got up on the roof, he spotted Nathan, in Chiropteran form, dragging a soldier along. By the uniform, it was another one of the Americans, probably from the second squad. By the amount of blood on the uniform, the American was no longer alive. Another Chiropteran, shreds of uniform still on its back, was heading away from the two of them.

Throwing all caution into the wind, Kai spread his wings and _flew_ at Nathan, barreling into him and carrying him along until both of them smashed into a building. The crash took them through a brick wall onto the second floor. While they tumbled to a halt, Kai was already clawing at Nathan's chest and neck, leaving bloody streaks that healed instantly.

Nathan didn't hesitate, either. As soon as the both of them had stopped rolling and he had some sort of solid ground to push off against, he threw Kai off and jumped to his feet. A kick and a throw set Kai sliding further away. Nathan took advantage of the time this gained him to shift back into human shape and spit a few questions. "Who the hell are you? One of Saya's?"

Kai didn't bother to respond – it would have been difficult anyway, since he didn't have Nathan's ease in shifting between forms and speaking through fangs was a skill he hadn't quite acquired yet either. He could if he tried, but there was no need for words here. Just ending the one remaining threat to his girls. He simply got to his feet and charged again.

Nathan sidestepped and, once Kai was past, grabbed on to one wing. He wrenched Kai out of his path and sent him flying again. But somewhere during that move, he had to have gotten a sniff or a taste, because this time, when Kai landed, he said his name. "Kai?" He started laughing. "You decided to take that offer after all, did you? Maybe you realized that in thirty years, you'd be an old man without anything to offer Saya?"

"Shut up, you bastard," Kai said while he prepared for another charge, but it came out as little more than a growl. Kai was now regretting the fact that when he'd shed his armor and shortly afterwards his human shape, he'd also left his pistol behind. Hand-to-hand or claw-to-claw, Nathan had more experience and probably more strength than him. Still, it was all he had left, so that's what he was going to use. At least in here, Nathan didn't have the luxury of running. Kai rushed in again, this time anticipating Nathan's sidestep. He evaded the grab for his wings by dropping into a roll, aiming a kick at Nathan's stomach during the drop, and stabbing a claw into Nathan's shoulder when he came back up. Too bad. He'd aimed for the chest. "I didn't ask for this," he tried again, and this time it was a little clearer. He tried to strike Nathan's face with his remaining free hand, but Nathan blocked it easily and then threw Kai off again.

"There's no need for us to fight, you know," he said, almost as if he hadn't just tossed Kai into a heap of furniture. He started to say more, but was distracted by the sounds of gunfire from outside, and changed his mind. His shoulders dropped. "Are you with these pests?"

Kai paid no attention to Nathans words. He charged again and again, leaving Nathan no other option

than to evade or strike back. Kai's attacks failed to penetrate, but Nathan still didn't seem particularly interested in actually fighting back. He kept asking Kai to calm down. Of course, that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Actually, it happened sooner than Kai was ready for. He was right in the middle of an attack when the gunfire was suddenly very close and bullets hit him. He roared out in pain and twisted around to see who was firing at him. American soldiers. As Kai was turning, more came into the room and started firing. Kai raised his arms to protect his face. He tried to shout at them to stop, but couldn't make any intelligible words come out.

Nathan took advantage of Kai's momentary distraction. He ducked underneath Kai's wings and ran toward the soldiers, who obligingly stood aside for him. Then they resumed firing. Nathan was out the door in seconds.

Kai stormed after him, but his way was blocked by ever more soldiers, all of them firing constantly, hoping to score a fatal hit. They had no such luck. Kai's wounds healed as soon as the bullets passed through.

Kai swatted the massed soldiers aside, clearing a path. The shots, heal though they might, hurt. He couldn't protect himself against them, and they were whittling away at his reserves of blood. Kai had to get out. At this rate, Nathan was going to get away. He was getting thirsty, too.

He managed to get outside, but all he found there was more massed firepower, backed up by a helicopter this time. Kai wasted valuable seconds looking around for a long gone Nathan. That meant he only saw the heavy caliber guns trained on him when they were already firing. No time to dodge. The impact obliterated his left shoulder and threw him against the building he'd just come out of.

The pain overruled everything else. He needed blood. Luckily, there were handy packets of it running around. They were pestering him with stings, too. Two birds with one stone.

He got to his feet. His left arm wasn't working right yet, so he lunged with his right at the closest source of blood-scent. It dodged. So could he. A short hop landed him on top of his prey. It tried to fight back with a gun still, but it was disarmed easily enough. He bit down, drinking in gloriously warm blood and taking a chunk of flesh for good measure. It didn't take long for the blood to stop flowing. No matter, there was more to be had elsewhere.

There were shouts from somewhere in the distance, and the bullets stopped flying in his direction so much. All the better. He lunged for another prey…

…only to find it roughly torn away from in front of him. Instead, he faced another chiropteran. Another chevalier, even, though he remained in the human form. Haji, his mind supplied. Why would Haji stop him from getting the blood he needed? That puzzle made him stop in his tracks for a fraction of a second. It was long enough for Haji to bring up his bandaged hand and stab the oversized syringe it held into Kai's chest.

Kai reflexively tried to block Haji's strike, but he was too slow. And as soon as Haji withdrew his hand, Kai could already feel his reactions become more sluggish. This wasn't good. He was surrounded by people shooting at him, and he was already short of blood. He had to get away. He brushed Haji aside and tried to continue feeding, but Haji stepped back in and pushed him away.

Then he felt more impacts. Instead of hurting, however, the places where they hit turned numb. When Kai turned to find the source of these shots (slowly, oh so slowly), he recognized the shooter as his team leader just before his vision went dark.

Oh shit.

-x-

Miyagusuku led the way into the basement tunnel. Mike caught up with him again at a bend further down the corridor. The acute angle of the tunnel wall there provided a little bit of cover, which was being used by several of his colleagues to make a stand against the raging chiropterans.

"… eight of us caught on the other side," one of those colleagues was reporting to Miyagusuku just as Mike arrived. The others were using rapid bursts of fire to drive the chiropterans back. The main reason they were relatively safe, however , was because the Mice were too busy with the soldiers on the other side. They had no cover at all, and so were easier prey.

The remains of one Mouse was at Mike's colleagues' feet, the bright tatters of a pizza deliveryman's uniform standing out among the red crystal. There were seven more in the corridor beyond. The only thing really saving his fellows was the fact that the big mass of Mice couldn't really maneuver all that well in the tight tunnel.

"Try the tranquilizers, sir?" Mike suggested.

Miyagusuku shook his head. "Save them," he said. "There's no way you're going to be able to hit all of those with enough of it to make a difference." He touched the transmit button on his radio. "Colonel, better get down here. It will get messy very quick." Then he turned back to Mike and his colleagues. "Try not to shoot me, if you can."

He stepped into the melee, too fast to be able to hear the corporal he'd been talking to earlier call him an idiot – only not in such polite terms. He was firing his pistol as soon as he'd rounded the corner. Mike could see the first three shots hit the back of the closest Mouse, which turned around only to receive a further two shots to the chest and one in the head. It dropped.

A second Mouse had also turned around. Miyagusuku shot it, but his final shot missed, and one of the Mouse's claws came down to tear out a sizeable chunk of his shoulder. The corporal turned away, but Mike forced himself to keep looking.

Miyagusuku dropped the gun, and caught the claw. Barehanded. At about the same time as he transformed.

"Holy shit," another corporal swore, and Mike felt like confirming the statement. Miyagusuku had been right. Had this happened at the barracks, they wouldn't have gotten out of there.

Like Miyagusuku said, it was nothing like the Hulk. It was actually quite a smooth and quick transition. Almost like looking at one of those speeded-up movies that showed a small sapling growing into a large tree in a matter of seconds. This didn't even take that long. Miyagusuku went from average, pale-skinned human to huge, grey-skinned Chiropteran in about the time it took to blink.

A pair of wings, like sails of leather, pushed up the oversized jacket he wore and spread out as far as they could in the confined space. Since when did Chiropterans have wings? Maybe it had something to do with the 'special kind' of Chiropteran Miyagusuku said he was.

Bigger or not, wings or not, it didn't make much of a difference to the efficiency of Miyagusuku's movement. He'd levered the Mouse that attacked him aside, then kicked it to the ground and placed one foot on it to keep it down.

Its screams drew the attention of the other five Mice, and it didn't take long for Miyagusuku to be surrounded by the things, their claws tearing at his flesh and wings in their attempts to keep him off them.

That was quite the gruesome sight. The claws from the Mice left deep gashes or sometimes even holes, but the wounds healed rapidly, even quicker than Mike had seen happen before on normal Mice. The same went for the bullet holes from the fire that some of Mike's fellow soldiers were still directing at the Mice. Those big wings couldn't stay out of the way of everything.

Well, he could at least try to do something about the shooting. "This is Saunders," he spoke into his radio, "the big one is a friendly. Hold your fire unless you know you can hit the smaller ones."

"Keep firing," another voice intruded on the channel, and the Colonel's voice was unmistakable. "He can take a few bullets."

Mike looked around to see the Colonel and Lewis standing behind him, having finally caught up. He opened his mouth to protest the order, but then remembered his own rank and thought better of it.

The Colonel still must have noticed, however, because he came closer to Mike to speak without the radio. "Those bullets hurt him less than those Mice tearing chunks out of his flesh. We can kill even one, we've helped him more than if we stop firing now."

Questions were coming over the radio channel, but the Colonel overruled them all by repeating his order. Still, at least some of the fire was directed away from Miyagusuku now.

To be honest, he looked like he needed all the help he could get. He was tearing into the Mice with efficient viciousness, but the reverse was equally true. Mike could recognize some martial arts forms in Miyagusuku's movements, even concealed as they were by his current shape, and that was certainly something he'd never seen or heard of a Chiropteran doing. His movements, however, were restricted by his size and the number of opponents further crowding the limited space. Still, one by one the Mice fell.

When only two were left, Mike noticed that Lewis was readying his tranquilizer gun. It looked like he was expecting trouble. Just in case, Mike lifted his, too. It seemed wrong to shoot Miyagusuku, though. The man had been fighting hard.

He still was, in fact. That instant, he kicked one of the Mice against the tunnel wall, then struck the other one in the chest with both claws. He pulled back, and a bloody mess came out with it. Without shaking the gore off, he then grabbed the Mouse's head and tore it away.

Mike winced. Lewis did, too, and now actually aimed his gun. Some people were still trapped. The soldiers on the other side of the melee had people with injuries with them, and the whole floor was covered with Chiropteran blood. They'd have to be carried out one by one. By now, there was only one Mouse left, and then there was nothing but these tranq guns keeping a very hungry and demonstrably very powerful Chiropteran from attacking everyone in the hallway.

Except the Chiropteran himself. So far, Miyagusuku had killed the Mice in pretty much the same way he'd disposed of the second-to-last one, with his hands. Now he took the last remaining Mouse in some sort of hold, pinning its arms to its body, and bit down on its neck.

The thing struggled at first, and struggled hard, but it couldn't break free and soon its efforts weakened. Then it stopped moving altogether, and color started leeching from it grey-brown skin. Still Miyagusuku didn't let go. Only when all color had gone from the Mouse, he disengaged and dropped the body. It shattered into tiny red crystals as soon as it hit the floor. The fight was over.

-x-

When Kai regained consciousness, he was in a hospital room, heavy-duty restraints crisscrossing over his arms, legs, and chest. He was also hooked up to two IV's of whole blood at the same time. Several empty blood bags were in a bin marked 'Incineration' next to his bed.

Haji stood in a corner of the room, looking at him disapprovingly. By the door, two troopers stood looking at him nervously, their tranquilizer guns aimed at his chest. Why all the precautions?

That was when his memory kicked in, and Kai slumped back into the pillows. Right. Everything he'd feared could go wrong, i_had/i_ gone wrong. No wonder his guards were twitchy.

Their twitchiness wasn't helped by Mao, who chose that moment to enter the room, slamming the door behind her.

"Just what the hell were you thinking!" she shouted at Kai, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "You go off by yourself, leaving your squad to deal with two vicious Mice by themselves, and then you start killing soldiers yourself! Ever heard of i_discipline_?/i I've got a whole brigade's worth of American officers out there screaming for your head, a diplomatic incident with the UN like you wouldn't believe, the press are two hundred deep around this hospital trying to find out about the flying Chiropteran. i_And/i_ there are six dead Americans that someone will want compensation for."

"I know." Kai hung his head, insofar that was possible while lying flat on his back. Then he kept his mouth shut. There wasn't really anything he could say apart from that. You couldn't just apologize for something like this.

Mao had rounded on the two soldiers at the door. "You two, i_out/i,"_ she commanded them. When one of the soldiers opened his mouth to protest, she stifled it with a glare. "It's best you don't see what I'm about to do here."

The soldiers took the hint.

When they were gone, Mao turned her attention back to Kai. "You really are an idiot, you know that? All you had to do was stay in the rear and point out the Mice to the Americans. They'd have handled the rest, and everything would be fine now. But no, you had to go play the hero! Look where it got you!

"And i_you/i,_" she continued, twisting around to face Haji, "don't get any points for subtlety either. The least you could have done was slip away from the Americans, instead of bringing the whole company with you."

Haji, as usual, didn't dignify that with an answer. Kai thought Mao was being a bit unreasonable, there, too. The Americans were close by, and it wasn't as if a hulking great Chiropteran flying through the air was ever going to pass unnoticed. He'd been seen, and that meant the Americans would have shown up sooner or later anyway. Mao seemed to realize that, too, actually, as her righteous anger seemed to deflate, and she sank into the chair next to Kai's bed. She massaged her temples. "What a mess."

She was right, it was a mess. And it was all his fault. But, thinking back, Kai couldn't figure out a point at which he should have done anything differently. Holding back, as Mao seemed to have been suggesting, would still have resulted in dead bodies, just different ones. And once he'd noticed Nathan, he'd had to go after him, too, because allowing him to escape would mean he'd come after Elisa one day. Of course, Nathan had still managed to escape, but… "Go on, say it," Mao said to him, nudging Kai's train of thought out of its tracks.

He frowned. "Say what?"

"Say 'I told you so,' and get it over with," Mao said. "You weren't ready for this and you knew it, but I made you come anyway."

"This isn't something I wanted to be right about," Kai answered, turning his eyes away from Mao. "If there's anything I can do, tell me."

He heard the rush of hair over fabric as Mao shook her head. "You've done enough, believe me. You're through here. We'll get you back to Japan, so I can tell people you've been dealt with." She sighed. It sounded angry. "That's going to do so much good to the clean-up efforts, but it can't be helped. Rio is probably a lost cause anyway, with all the blood you spread around today.

"It was all going so well, too. You were making good progress with the cleanup, and we were getting some interesting results from the Mouse you captured. We'll at least still have that, but all the rest of your effort has gone down the drain."

"Interesting results?" Kai asked.

Mao nodded. "That Mouse you two captured a few days ago was non-responsive to everything based off Saya's or Diva's blood we tried on it. I got a preliminary analysis from some samples this afternoon, just before your mess broke out. It's completely different from any other Chiropteran we know of." She paused for dramatic effect, looking Kai in the eye. "That includes Irene and Elisa."

Kai was taken aback by that statement. It was very strange. There really wasn't any way for any Chiropterans to not be descended from Diva or Saya, nor, apart from himself, Elisa or Irene. Unless… well, they never i_had/i_ figured out when Nathan had joined Diva's clique. And Nathan had been here, in Brazil. It was worth the suggestion, anyway.

"Could it be Nathan?" he asked.

Mao's eyebrows rose. "What gives you that idea? We haven't heard anything from him in i_years/i._ And he was one of Diva's Chevaliers, in any case."

"Nathan was here," Kai said. He wondered why Haji hadn't told anyone about that. Well, he didn't really know if Haji had even i_realized/i_. Nathan and Haji hadn't gotten all that close together today, after all. Then again, Kai had sensed Nathan from far, far off.

"What did you say?" Mao's surprise was clear from her voice.

"I fought Nathan today," Kai repeated. "I sensed him when he was converting soldiers, that's why I went after him."

"That puts a new spin on things," Mao said. "I mean, we can't be sure that he's responsible for this. Even if he isn't, if he's converting people, that makes him a threat again. We'll have to catch him anyway."

"I'll help, if you'll let me, " Kai offered.

Mao considered that for a few seconds while playing with the clipboard that had lain next to Kai's bed. Then she shook her head. "I don't think that's such a good idea. Not with what happened today."

Kai pulled at his restraints. They were stronger than he'd expected. Then he let himself fall back onto the cushion. "Yeah, I suppose," he acknowledged Mao's concern. "But how else are you going to capture a Chevalier that doesn't want to get captured?"

Mao didn't answer that. Instead, she just looked Kai over, as he was tied to the bed, and raised an eyebrow.

Kai sighed. "That's my point, actually. You needed Haji to get close enough to dose me with the sedative once I'd really lost it. Even if my team'd been there at first, I could have been far gone by the time they thought to aim."

Mao held out her hand to stop him. "And yet, here you are talking yourself up as just as dangerous, if not more so, than Nathan. Just shut up for now, and let me think it through." She leaned back in her chair again, frowning. "You need more control, clearly."

"I can learn that. I will learn to control myself," Kai assured her again.

Mao smiled and shook her head. "Easier said than done, Kai. As you've proven today. As you warned me for, today." She turned her head to look at Haji. "Maybe if Haji would come along to keep you safe?"

Haji didn't move under her gaze for several seconds. Then he slowly shook his head. "No." After a long pause, he continued. "I will teach you control. I will help contain other chiropterans, because Saya would want me to. I will not hunt Nathan."

Kai felt surprised. For Haji, that was quite the speech. He had to care quite a lot. Well, Nathan _had_ saved his life. That'd influence anyone's opinion. He nodded. "I guess I can understand that. I'll just have to take those lessons to heart."

Haji also inclined his head, and that should have been the end of the matter. But Mao wasn't ready to give up that quickly. She spoke up with some indignation. "Why wouldn't you help? You're just as much part of Red Shield as the rest of us are."

Haji shook his head. "I never have been a member of Red Shield," he said. "I only help them because they want the same things. In this, we do not want the same thing." After a brief silence that was just long enough for Mao to open her mouth for a retort, he nodded a goodbye to Kai. "I will not discuss this further." With that, he left the room.

"Hey!" Mao called after him. She got up out of her chair, ready to call out to the Red Shield soldiers outside the room to stop Haji.

"Leave it," Kai called out to her. "He's got a point, you know," he continued when Mao turned on her heel to face him again. "Red Shield is an organization set up to fight Chiropterans. As a Chevalier, he –" Kai grimaced, then corrected himself, "_iwe/i_ can't ever really be a part of it."

"Nonsense," Mao objected, sitting back down. At least she seemed to have abandoned her objective of having Haji confined. "You've been with Red Shield since you were sixteen. And Saya's been with Red Shield as long as it existed, as far as I've been told."

Kai shook his head. "The Red Shield that was created to support Saya against Diva isn't the Red Shield that exists now. That fight is over. The public organization that Red Shield has become has very little in common with what it was." He looked Mao in the eye. "What are you going to do when Saya wakes up, Mao? Announce her to all the world as a Chiropteran hunter? Put her to work again? Then what have we fought for?"

"She'll want to help," Mao said, with cold certainty. "If it's still necessary by then."

"She probably would, at that," Kai nodded, frowning. "But only because she still feels guilty about releasing Diva. I know she just wants to live normally." He looked down, flexing his hands in their restraints. "I want to help her do that. I want to help Red Shield do that." He looked up at Mao again. "But first I have to protect my daughters. And to do that, I need to stop Nathan. And I'll do it with or without Red Shield."

-x-

For half an instant, Mike observed the carnage that Miyagusuku had wrought among the Mice. Then realization dawned that Miyagusuku hadn't exactly come off unscathed, either. And by his own admission, injuries made him hungry. Hunger made him lose control. And right now, he was surrounded by what must look like an entire platoon of meals on legs. Oh shit. Mike tightened his grip on his rifle.

_iEveryone/i_ now raised their weapons, but Miyagusuku didn't move. He stood there, shaking slightly. After a few seconds, he collapsed onto the floor. Somehow, on the way down, he went back to looking human.

Lewis was a Miyagusuku's side as soon as he hit the floor, rolling down his sleeves and putting on a face mask in a practiced movement as he dropped to his knees in the pool of chiropteran blood. "Kai!" he shouted, but got no reaction.

The rest of the assault team were helping their wounded past the pool of blood without getting any into open wounds. There had been two casualties, but those bodies would be incinerated later. One of them was among the now crystallizing bodies of the Mice. Mike could still see shreds of urban camouflage gear on that one. The other had been shot by his colleagues before the transformation could complete. Mike slowly approached Miyagusuku, the only one of the team who did so.

The man looked bad. What little color his skin had had, it was gone now, and portions of it were flaking off, into thin, hard – almost crystalline, in fact – pieces. He was still moving, though, just barely. "What's happening to him?" Mike asked.

Lewis was also looking at some of the flakes and frowning. "Even Red Shield doesn't have a lot of information about Chiropteran diseases," he said. "But this looks like what happened to the Schiff after drinking Haji's blood. Just a lot slower." He looked back at the carnage behind him. "Damn idiot kid. More guts than brains, always has been."

Lewis dragged one of Kai's arms over his shoulders, then stood up, gesturing to Mike to take the other arm. "Let's get him to hospital. Maybe we can still do something."

Mike took up his position. Miyagusuku barely weighed anything. From the feel of it, Lewis could easily have carried him alone. But at least this way, he had a chance to ask some more questions. "You know what's happening to him, then?"

Lewis shook his head. "Just guessing." He let go of Miyagusuku with one hand to lift the tranq gun that still hung from his side by its strap. "The sedative in these darts is made from a compound found in the blood of Chiropterans from a different strain than Kai's. He must have realized he was too far gone to stay safe and drained that Mouse to get the same effect." He shifted Kai's arm to a better position over his shoulders. "A queen's blood from a different strain is lethal, but we've never had this particular situation yet. I don't know what's going to happen." Those last word sounded worried.

"So what do we do?" Mike asked.

"I only know of one thing that ever helped a Chiropteran. I just hope it's enough." They were now passing the Colonel, and Lewis addressed him before the Colonel could say anything. "We need to get him to a hospital. He needs blood. Lots of it."

Miyagusuku was loaded into a separate ambulance from the other casualties of Mike's team. Lewis got in the back of the car with Miyagusuku, and then motioned for Mike to come as well.

After Mike got in the car, he made to secure the tranquilizer weapon, but Lewis motioned for him to keep it ready. Lewis himself was helping the ambulance crew hook up as many IV bags of blood as they could fit on the tree.

"Looks like your intelligence services are going to get even more than they asked for," Lewis said after he'd done everything he could. It didn't really seem to be helping much. Miyagusuku's skin had gone grey and crackly and it was flaking off wherever Lewis or the medics touched it. "I don't think we're going to fix this in the two days we'd agreed to let your doctors study him."

"Sir?"

The corner of Lewis' mouth twitched as he turned his head to look at Mike. "You don't think Red Shield would just be allowed to take control over American forces, do you?"

Mike shook his head. "Of course not, sir. I'd assumed there was some sort of emergency."

Lewis nodded. "There was. Capturing Nathan is enough of a priority for us, and especially for Kai here, that he agreed to let researchers here look him over, iafter/i the mission. Now they're not just getting a look at a fully healthy Chevalier, but also how he recovers from disease." He shifted forward again, to check on the man they were talking about. His condition didn't seem to be improving. Then again, it didn't look like it was getting worse, either. "And from the look of it, that's going to be a doozy."

Lewis took out his cell phone and started making calls. Some were in English, all of them informing various people of what had happened, not much more. For the final one, though, he switched to Japanese, and although Mike couldn't understand most of what was being said, the explanation was a lot longer. And again, near the end of the conversation, the word for 'daughter' fell, leading to Lewis frowning and making occasional noises of assent while whoever was on the other side held out a long argument. Lewis didn't put the phone down until the ambulance had reached the hospital.

Lewis went along with the medics who took Miyagusuku into the hospital, leaving Mike behind.

Over the next couple of days, Mike didn't see a lot of either Lewis or Miyagusuku. Access to the entire wing of the hospital the Chiropteran was in was severely restricted. The closest Mike came for nearly two weeks was as a guard on the door.

In that capacity, he also saw the contingent of doctors and researchers from all over the world, brought in either by Red Shield or the US government. It was fairly easy to tell those two kinds apart, even without their badges. The Red Shield ones, especially, did not look happy when they walked out the doors again.

After those two weeks, Mike finally caught Lewis coming out of the ward without anyone accompanying him. He nodded a greeting at Mike, and Mike acknowledged it. Then he asked, "how's he doing, sir?"

Lewis halted when Mike spoke. The turned around to face him, shaking his head. "He's not well, sergeant. He still hasn't regained consciousness."

"Can I see him, sir?"

Lewis frowned at him. "Why would you want to? You barely met him."

Mike lowered his head, then raised it again. "He still saved my life, sir."

Lewis considered it for a few moments. "Ah well, why not," he then said. "Just let me get something to eat, first. When will you be relieved?"

Mike told him when his guard shift would be over, and sure enough, Lewis came back with his relief. He led Mike down stairs into the basement of the wing where a single large room had been fortified. The windows had either been closed up with steel sheets, or, on the one side where they remained in place, had been barred with inch-thick bars, close enough together that it was barely possible to see through.

Inside the room, Miyagusuku lay tied to a bed, hooked up to several IV's and all sorts of other machinery. He wasn't moving, didn't even seem to be breathing. Yet he was still strapped to the bed. And it wasn't a standard issue hospital bed, either. This thing looked solid enough to carry an elephant.

"That's a hell of a lot of security for one unconscious guy," Mike said.

"It's what happens when he wakes up that we're worried about," a woman answered him. From the accent, she was probably as Japanese as Miyagusuku, if not more so. Mike turned around to see where she'd come from, and the first sight of her confirmed the guess about her origins.

She, in turn, studied him. "Who are you?" she finally asked.

"Let me introduce you," Lewis interrupted. "Sergeant Mike Saunders, this is Ms. Jahana Mao, one of Red Shield's directors. Sergeant Saunders was on Kai's chase team when we went in after Nathan. He asked to see how our friend was doing."

"I see." Director Jahana - that was her last name, if Mike understood correctly - nodded. "Thank you for your hard work, sergeant," she then said.

"Thank you, ma'am," Mike said, but Director Jahana had already turned away and was talking to Lewis in Japanese. It didn't sound good, even if he couldn't understand a word of what was said. Well, that wasn't entirely true. But all he i_could/i_ catch was most likely the Japanese equivalent to 'if this goes on any longer', in a tone that predicted only bad things.

Eventually, Director Jahana left again, after taking another long look through the glass at Miyagusuku.

"How is he really doing, sir?" Mike asked Lewis.

"Well, there is actually some reason for optimism, " Lewis said. "His blood cells are apparently finally showing some signs of recovery. But it's very, very slow."

"Don't think anyone would recover quickly from the kind of damage he'd taken, sir."

Lewis actually laughed. "You're not a doctor, sergeant. And you don't know Kai that well." He nodded at Kai lying in the bed. "The physical injuries, before he drank that blood, should have taken him a day to heal, tops. And that's with our sedatives slowing his system down. The blood he drank really messed up his healing.

"But, he is getting there, however slowly. Of course, that just brings with it its own problems."

"Sir?"

Lewis shot him a look. "You saw how strong he is, sergeant. And that was with his strength and temper under control. Now imagine that strength – let's say this whole process halved it just for argument's sake – but now powered by so much hunger he's not going to be reasonable anymore. That bed, this room… is not going to hold him when he wakes up."

He shook his head. "If you wanted to say goodbye, sergeant, or thank him, do it now. We're moving him as soon as the plane gets here."

Mike Summers never saw Kai Miyagusuku again.


End file.
